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BV  3265  .S24  1914 
Scholberg,  Ella  C 

Leaves 


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BEING    A    COLLECTION    OF   LETTERS 
WRITTEN    FOR    A    COUNTY   NEWS- 
PAPER IN  AMERICA,  BY  A  MISSIONARY 
IN  INDIA 


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MAR     1    2000 


Copyright  191 4 
By  Ella   C.   Scholberg 


R.  R.  DONNELLEY  &  SONS  COMPANV 
CHICAGO 


DEDICATED 

TO  MY  SISTER, 

MAUD  A.  CONRAD, 

THROUGH   WHOSE   INSPIRATION 

AND  LABOR 

THIS  BOOK  OWES  ITS 

EXISTENCE 


INTRODUCTION 

Several  months  ago  a  sister  of  mine  conceived  the  idea 
of  collecting  all  the  letters  I  had  written  for  the  Big  Stone 
County  Journal,  published  at  Ortonville,  Minnesota,  and 
getting  them  out  as  a  book.  She  was  much  more  enthusiastic 
about  it  than  I  was  —  her  viewpoint  was  the  North  American 
Continent,  where  affairs  from  India  must  appear  in  romantic 
light.  But  seeing  the  Orient  at  first  hand  makes  one  hesitate 
to  describe  it  —  much  more  to  write  a  book  on  it.  It  is  full 
of  contradictions  and  inconsistencies,  and  the  one  who 
thinks  he  knows  the  Indian  best  is  often  the  one  who  finds 
he  knows  least  about  him.  However,  I  have  never  regretted 
having  put  down  my  first  impressions  of  India ;  they  are  there 
in  tangible  form  to  look  back  upon  through  all  the  future 
years,  and  although  making  them  into  a  book  is  a  very  serious 
matter,  I  trust  my  readers  will  accept  this  apology  and  not 
hold  me  to  account  for  what  I  may  have  written  under  a 
mistaken  impression.  There  are  books  and  books  on  India, 
and  one  of  the  latest  we  have  read  is  ''Irresponsible  Im- 
pressions of  India,"  written  by  an  English  lady.  That  would 
have  been  a  most  appropriate  title  for  my  book,  for  irre- 
sponsible these  leaves  certainly  are. 

E.  C.  S. 

Narsinghpur,  C.  P.,  India,  September  i,  1913 


Port  Said,  Egypt,  November  27,  1906. 
Dear  Friends  in  the  Homeland: 

Some  one  told  us  to-day  that  letters  mailed  at  Port  Said 
would  reach  America  by  Christmas,  so  we  decided  to  send  a 
write-up  of  our  journey  thus  far  and  when  we  reach  Bombay 
we  will  send  the  rest. 

We  arrived  in  New  York  too  late  to  make  final  arrange- 
ments for  our  out-going,  so  that  everything  had  to  be  left 
until  Monday.  On  Sunday  we  heard  Dr.  Parkhurst  of 
Madison  Square  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  morning,  at- 
tended an  Episcopal  musical  in  the  afternoon,  and  went  to 
the  Metropolitan  Temple  M.  E.  Church  in  the  evening. 
Monday  noon  we  took  a  train  for  Worcester,  Mass.,  where  the 
first  of  our  New  England  receptions  was  held.  The  second 
was  held  at  Roxbury,  third  in  South  Boston,  and  the  last  at 
Dorchester.  I  think  that  our  friends  know  that  the  Boston 
District  Ep worth  League  has  taken  up  our  support,  under 
what  is  known  as  the  Station  Plan  and  we  are  their  represen- 
tatives in  the  field.  We  are  very  much  pleased  with  the 
arrangement  as  it  will  keep  us  doing  our  very  best  and  keep 
them  interested  in  field  work.  One  of  the  circuit  presidents 
said  he  was  glad  the  Epworth  League  had  an  issue  now 
besides  ice  cream  and  cake.  And  it  is  not  only  an  interest 
in  missions  but  an  interest  in  the  home  work,  for  their  motto 
is  "One  thousand  dollars  for  missions  and  twelve  hundred 
souls  for  Christ  this  year." 

We  left  Boston  for  New  York  the  day  before  we  sailed. 
The  editor  of  World  Wide  Missions  invited  us  to  his 
home  for  dinner  the  last  evening  we  spent  in  America,  and 
early  the  next  morning  we  went  to  the  ferry  and  were  taken 
across  to  Hoboken,  N.  J.,  where  our  steamer,  the  "Koenig 
Albert,"  was  being  loaded  for  the  journey.  We  found  that 
our  trunks  and  other  baggage  had  arrived  safely  at  the 
wharf,  and  friends  from  New  Jersey  and  New  York  were 
there  to  see  us  off.  We  were  tired  from  our  journey  and  our 
sight  seeing,  but  were  happy  until  the  very  last  good-byes 

[7] 


had  to  be  said  and  we  had  to  witness  some  very  sad  partings. 
Soon  two  little  tugboats  came  up  and  towed  our  immense 
steamer  with  its  sixteen  hundred  passengers  out  into  the 
bay.  The  last  ^'bon  voyage'^  had  been  wafted  from  the 
shore,  the  last  gong  sounded,  the  great  engines  began  to 
throb  and  we  were  out  upon  the  boundless  ocean. 

For  nearly  a  week  we  saw  no  land.  On  the  Mediterranean 
we  see  islands  and  passing  steamers  very  often,  but  on  the 
Atlantic  we  saw  none,  until  we  reached  the  Azores.  But  the 
time  passed  pleasantly,  for  we  read,  walked  the  deck,  pitched 
quoits,  told  stories,  listened  to  recitals, —  for  we  had  a  number 
of  musicians  on  board  who  were  going  abroad  to  study, —  and 
watched  the  steerage  passengers  at  their  amusements. 

There  were  about  fourteen  hundred  in  the  steerage. 
Some  of  them  were  denied  entrance  into  America  because  of 
hereditary  disease,  mental  incapacity,  being  crippled,  or 
some  other  reason,  and  then  had  to  be  taken  back  free  of 
charge  on  the  same  steamer  that  brought  them  over.  Poor 
unfortunates,  packed  like  cattle  in  a  small,  unclean  place, 
with  only  a  blanket  to  sleep  on  and  a  tin  plate  and  cup  from 
which  to  eat  and  drink!  Measles  and  scarletina  broke  out 
among  them  before  we  reached  Gibraltar,  and  before  we  were 
allowed  to  leave  our  steamer,  a  tiny  boat  brought  a  quaran- 
tine ofi&cer  on  board  and  we  waited  patiently  until  he  made 
an  examination  and  reported.  We  were  afraid  that  we 
would  be  held  at  Gibraltar  fourteen  days,  for  there  were 
about  forty  of  us  to  land,  but  we  were  allowed  to  go  in  peace 
and  a  tender  came  and  took  us  to  the  dock.  We  had  a  fine 
time  in  Gibraltar,  went  through  the  English  fortifications 
almost  to  the  rock  where  we  could  look  out  upon  Spain, 
Tangiers,  the  Mediterranean,  and  the  Atlantic.  On  the 
plains  below  we  saw  a  football  game  in  progress  and  next  to 
it  was  the  Spanish  bullfight  ring  —  our  guide  told  us  that 
they  have  no  fights  at  this  time  of  the  year,  but  during  the 
spring  they  have  one  every  Sunday.  In  the  afternoon  we 
took  a  carriage  ride  about  the  city,  stopping  here  and  there 
to  gather  wild  flowers.  The  next  morning  we  arose  early 
and  walked  across  to  Spain  and  bought  some  fruit  and  cakes 

[8] 


in  a  Spanish  village.  Our  steamer,  the  "Arabia,"  from 
England,  was  due  at  ten  o'clock,  but  it  was  seven  hours  late, 
and  we  afterwards  learned  that  it  was  on  account  of  a  storm 
in  the  Bay  of  Biscay.  The  captain,  who  has  been  on  the 
sea  forty  years,  said  he  never  saw  such  a  storm,  but  the  only 
disaster  was  the  breaking  of  a  lot  of  dishes  and  a  general 
mixup.  A  tub  of  soft  soap  left  its  mooring  and  collided  with 
a  lot  of  jam,  to  the  destruction  of  both.  We  got  on  board 
before  nightfall  and  were  sound  asleep  before  the  boat 
started  on  its  journey  to  Bombay. 

Two  days  later  we  reached  Marseilles  where  we  anchored 
over  night  and  had  the  pleasure  of  "touring  in  France"  for 
an  afternoon.  The  city  is  pretty  after  leaving  the  docks  — 
streets  are  wide  and  buildings  all  the  same  height.  We  got 
some  souvenirs  and  a  steamer  chair.  We  cannot  rent  chairs 
on  this  steamer  as  we  could  on  the  "Koenig."  We  saw  as 
much  of  the  town  as  we  had  time  for,  and  the  next  morning 
at  ten  o'clock  we  drew  anchor  and  were  towed  out  into  the 
Gulf  of  Lyons.  In  Marseilles,  as  well  as  in  Gibraltar,  there 
were  so  many  idle  folk,  beggars,  and  children  running  about. 
I  wished  that  I  could  have  packed  all  the  children  off  to 
school.  On  the  wharf  were  about  two  dozen  musicians, 
acrobats,  and  dancers  performing  for  the  pennies  thrown  to 
them  from  the  steamer.  We  passed  by  Sicily  and  Italy  in 
the  night,  so  we  could  not  see  them,  and  also  Sardinia  and 
Corsica.     But  we  passed  Crete  in  the  day  and  saw  its  coast. 

Just  a  few  minutes  ago  the  firebell  rang  and  we  saw  a 
practice  which  they  have  once  a  week.  We  reach  Bombay 
December  yth  and  by  the  time  you  are  reading  this  we  will 
be  preparing  to  go  to  the  Jubilee  Celebration  at  Bareilly. 

Merry  Christmas  and  Happy  New  Year  to  all. 

Ella  Conrad  Scholberg. 


[9] 


47  Mazagon  Road,  Mazagon,  Bombay,  India. 
Dear  Friends  All: 

My  first  impressions  of  India  may  change  very  much 
after  we  have  been  here  longer,  but  I  am  going  to  give  them 
to  you. 

Remember,  too,  that  what  may  be  true  of  Bombay,  may 
not  be  true  of  all  India.  This  is  a  large  country  and  furnishes 
a  home  for  one-fifth  of  the  world's  people.  It  has  all  kinds 
of  climate,  all  varieties  of  people,  all  manner  of  filth  and 
disease,  and  all  sorts  of  social  and  industrial  conditions. 

But  I  shall  speak  only  of  our  own  city,  Bombay,  the 
"Queen  of  Indian  Cities,"  Kipling's  own  birthplace. 

After  seeing  a  city  of  Spain,  and  of  France,  and  of  Egypt, 
we  dreaded  to  think  what  Bombay  would  be  like,  but  we 
were  much  pleased  with  the  change  that  met  our  eyes.  We 
found  broader  streets  than  other  Eastern  cities,  the  finest 
horse  tramway  in  the  world,  and  splendid  Victoria  hacks  at 
such  cheap  rates  that  we  are  not  debarred  from  the  use  of 
them.  Bombay  has  some  beautiful  seashore  drives,  and  the 
road  between  here  and  Calcutta  is  the  finest  macadamized 
road  in  the  world.  The  streets  here  are  electric  lighted  and 
well  policed,  and  the  mission  houses,  as  well  as  other  Europe- 
an buildings,  are  modern  in  every  respect.  We  have  the 
Taj  Mahal  hotel,  the  finest  hotel  in  southern  Asia,  and  a 
great  many  beautiful  government  buildings. 

But  there  is  another  side  of  the  story,  and  this  is  charac- 
teristic of  the  Orient:  there  is  such  a  surplus  population, 
people  idling  their  time  away,  having  no  home  to  go  into, 
sleeping  on  the  street  and  living  upon  charity  or  by  doing 
little  services  if  they  can  find  them  to  do.  As  we  go  down  the 
street  we  are  met  by  half  a  dozen  or  more  who  wish  to  show  the 
way  to  go,  or  call  a  cab  for  us,  or  do  anything  to  earn  a  penny. 
And  the  beggars  that  line  the  streets  on  every  hand  give 
one  the  heartache.  I  have  always  supposed  that  lepers 
were  taken  care  of  in  leper  asylums,  but  they  are  not,  all  of 
them.     It  is  not  because  there  is  no  room  for  them,  either, 

[10] 


but  because  the  government  does  not  force  them  to  go 
there  and  many  of  them  prefer  to  keep  their  freedom  and  live 
on  the  street  and  beg.  They  must  find  great  enjoyment  in 
begging !  They  need  not  get  much  in  order  to  live.  Ordinary 
wages  here  are  about  two  dollars  a  month  and  a  man  can 
dissipate  more  on  that  than  a  man  in  America  can  on  fifty 
dollars  a  month.  But  more  pitiful  even  than  the  lepers  is 
the  sight  of  the  blind,  and  lame,  and  helpless,  who  have 
had  their  eyes  put  out,  or  who  have  mutilated  their  own 
bodies  in  order  to  make  themselves  too  helpless  to  work  and 
so  have  an  excuse  to  beg.  We  cannot  give  them  money  for 
it  would  take  a  whole  month's  salary  to  give  each  one  a  sixth 
of  a  cent,  which  is  the  smallest  coin  here. 

We  go  to  conference  at  Baroda  next  Monday.  Baroda 
is  two  hundred  fifty  miles  from  Bombay,  north,  and  we  will 
have  direct  railroad.  England  has  a  very  fine  system  here 
and  we  travel  for  a  cent  and  a  half  a  mile.  After  conference 
we  will  come  back,  likely,  for  I  think  our  work  is  fairly  decided 
upon.  We  will  commence  the  study  of  that  most  difficult 
Marathi  language  that  "puts  your  tongue  out  of  joint, "  and 
until  we  have  it  learned  Mr.  Scholberg  will  preach  to  the 
people  through  an  interpreter  and  wdll  preach  English  in  the 
English  churches.  There  are  two  English  churches  in 
Bombay,  for  there  are  thirty  thousand  English  people  here 
and  two  hundred  seventy  thousand  of  the  natives  can  speak 
and  understand  English.  Bombay  has  a  population  of 
nearly  a  million. 

We  live  in  a  very  beautiful  and  comfortable  bungalow. 
We  have  a  drawing  room,  library,  dining  room  and  study  on 
the  ground  floor  and  three  bedrooms  with  three  bath  rooms 
on  the  next  floor.  Both  up  and  down,  there  are  large  veran- 
das, and  the  rooms  are  all  large  and  high.  The  kitchen  and 
other  rooms  are  away  from  the  house  and  I  will  have  the 
servants  that  the  memsahib  had  before  me.  I  will  have  a 
cook,  butler  and  sweeper  besides  the  pundit,  who  will  come 
every  morning  to  give  us  our  lesson. 

This  is  the  cool  season,  but  from  about  one  to  three 
o'clock  it  is  hotter  than  any  summer  day  in  Minnesota.     We 

[II] 


stay  indoors  then  and  were  it  not  for  our  cool  houses  we 
could  not  live  here.  We  never  go  out  without  our  great 
sunhats,  which  shade  the  neck  and  shoulders  as  well  as  the 
head.  Five  minutes  in  this  sun  would  give  us  a  sunstroke 
from  which  we  would  never  recover. 

We  went  with  our  interpreter  to  the  native  shops  to-day. 
There  are  large  English  shops  but  we  wanted  to  see  what  the 
natives  had  to  sell.  They  are  so  very  small  that  we  had  to 
stand  outside  of  them  to  do  our  buying.  They  have  a  large 
sign  that  the  prices  are  all  fixed,  but  that  is  all  bogus,  for  if 
you  know  what  an  article  is  worth  you  can  get  it  for  that  even 
if  the  price  marked  on  it  is  three  times  as  much. 

On  the  whole  we  are  very  much  pleased  with  our  new 
place  of  abode  —  we  forget  we  are  so  far  from  civilization 
when  we  hear  the  ^'Honk!  honk!"  of  the  motor  car  — 
Bombay  has  a  thousand  of  these  machines.  There  is  a  lot 
for  us  to  do,  for  there  are  only  two  dozen  missionaries  with 
their  families  in  all  this  great  city.  Think  of  all  the  preachers 
and  churches  in  Minneapolis,  a  city  only  one-fifth  as  large! 
And  one  church  here  is  used  for  services  all  day  Sunday — 
services  in  EngUsh,  Marathi,  Gujurati  and  Hindustani,  for 
those  are  the  principal  languages  of  Bombay. 

In  my  next  letter  I  will  tell  you  about  the  heathen  wedding 
I  attended  this  week. 

Our  love  to  all  our  friends, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


[12] 


Bombay,  India. 
Dear  Home  Friends: 

I  promised  to  tell  you  about  the  real  Hindu  wedding  I 
attended.  This  was  an  unknown  thing  —  I  mean  a  Christian 
going  to  a  Hindu  function  of  any  kind  —  a  few  years  ago,  but 
things  are  changing  now.  I  doubt  not  that  in  a  few  years 
we  will  be  invited  to  sit  at  their  board  with  them. 

The  invitations  were  printed  on  light  blue  cards,  and  ran 
like  this: 

"Mr.  Venayek  Narayen  Malgoankey  presents 
compliments  and  requests  the  favor  of  your  com- 
pany on  Monday  the  loth  instant,  between  6:00 
and  9:00  p.  M.,  on  the  occasion  of  the  wedding  of  his 
son,  Govind,  with  Manekbai,  daughter  of  Mr.  Shan- 
tarom  Narayen  Dabbalker,  at  the  bride's  house  at 
Chaupati. 

"Bombay,  ist  Dec,  1906." 
This  wedding  was  arranged  by  the  Hindu  priests,  to 
whom  the  groom's  parents  presented  the  matter  of  their 
son's  marriage.  They  ask  the  date  of  his  birth  and  then  by 
astrology  they  find  a  young  woman  —  sometimes  a  mere 
girl  —  who  was  born  under  the  same  star.  They,  the 
priests,  are  supposed  to  be  men  of  profound  learning.  They 
present  the  matter  to  the  girl's  parents  and  the  matter  of 
dowry  is  settled  and  the  date  for  the  nuptials  set.  You  see, 
the  girl  has  no  choice  in  the  matter,  and  when  she  marries 
she  renounces  her  home  and  parents  and  goes  to  live  at 
her  husband's  home,  becoming  his  slave,  and  the  slave  of  her 
mother-in-law.  She  is  kept  in  the  woman's  apartments 
at  the  back  of  the  house  and  is  never  seen  by  any  man 
outside  of  the  family.  Whenever  she  goes  out  she  is  closely 
veiled.  A  case  is  told  of  a  mother  watching  her  child  at 
play  in  the  street.  A  sudden  danger  appeared  and  the 
frightened  mother  rushed  out  to  save  her  child.  Of  course 
she  was  seen  by  a  number  of  men  upon  the  street,  who  re- 

[13] 


ported  the  affair  to  the  husband,  and  the  brave  little  mother 
met  her  cruel  death  that  night.  Sometimes  these  poor  child 
wives  suffer  cruel  treatment,  but  they  never  attempt  to  go 
back  to  their  own  homes,  for  if  they  did  they  would  be  driven 
away.  If  they  refused  to  marry  or  refused  to  live  with  their 
husbands,  they  are  outcast  and  suffer  terrible  persecution. 
There  is  no  place  for  them  to  go,  unless  they  can  be  cared  for 
and  sheltered  by  the  missionaries.  Many  of  them  are  taken 
and  kept  in  school,  and  become  very  useful  in  missionary 
work,  when  they  grow  to  womanhood. 

I  wish  that  you  might  read  the  book,  "The  Wrongs  of 
Indian  Womanhood"  by  Mrs.  Marcus  Fuller,  published  by 
Caxton,  New  York,  and  you  would  find  it  interesting  as  well 
as  educative. 

Well,  this  particular  wedding  that  I  attended  was  not 
as  sad  as  the  general  run  of  cases,  for  our  missionaries  know 
the  groom's  family  and  know  the  little  bride  will  be  well 
cared  for.  Both  families  are  wealthy  and  she  will  have 
plenty  of  gaudy  jewelry — and  that  is  all  they  know  enough  to 
live  for.     So  she  will  be  contented  and  think  herself  happy. 

The  ceremony  begins  with  a  procession  much  like  a 
circus  parade,  down  the  principal  streets.  The  groom  is 
seated  upon  a  gaily  decorated  horse,  himself  being  gor- 
geously covered  with  flowers  and  jewelry.  A  thousand  lights 
are  carried  by  attendants  and  the  procession  is  headed  by 
a  band.  These  last  two  features  belong  to  the  funeral  pro- 
cession as  well. 

After  the  procession  returns  to  the  bride's  house  the  real 
ceremony  begins.  The  priests  lead  the  bride  and  groom  to 
an  inner  room  and  they  seat  themselves  on  the  floor  facing 
each  other.  The  bride  keeps  her  head  bowed  during  the 
entire  ceremony  of  six  or  eight  hours  to  show  her  subjection. 
The  guests  crowd  around  them,  and  the  poor  little  bride 
nearly  faints  for  want  of  air.  A  great  dish  of  rice,  not 
cooked,  is  placed  between  them  and  they  take  turns  in  taking 
handfuls  of  it  and  putting  it  on  each  other's  heads,  the  priest 
chanting  something  in  Hindustani.  Another  part  of  the 
ceremony  is  the  pouring  of  water  upon  the  hands  of  the 

[14] 


groom,  and  it  runs  down  upon  the  hands  of  the  bride  held 
below.  I  suppose  this  is  to  illustrate  the  fact  that  ever 
after  she  must  let  her  husband  eat  and  drink  first  and  she 
take  what  is  left.  Her  fortune  is  told  her  while  her  mother- 
in-law  holds  her  to  keep  her  from  fainting.  I  could  not 
stay  to  see  any  more,  but  we  went  into  a  larger  place  where 
some  of  the  guests  were  eating.  They  motioned  us  away 
from  the  place,  for  of  course  it  would  contaminate  the  food 
if  our  eyes  looked  upon  it  when  they  were  eating.  We 
went  away  then  and  as  we  got  into  our  carriage  they  gave  us 
some  cocoanuts.  The  bride  had  to  sit  in  that  position  and 
go  through  all  that  silly  ceremony  until  midnight,  but  we 
came  home  at  seven.  I  was  never  so  thankful  in  my  life 
that  I  had  the  privilege  of  being  an  American. 

With  our  best  wishes, 

Ella  Conrad  Scholberg. 

P.  S.  Of  course  this  is  only  a  very  small  part  of  a  Hindu 
wedding.  There  are  celebrations  and  ceremonies  that  last 
for  a  week  or  more,  but  I  have  described  only  what  I  saw. 
Upon  arrival  at  the  bride's  father's  house,  we  were  shown 
into  a  tent  filled  with  men,  who  were  listening  to  the  songs 
and  watching  the  dances  of  a  professional  nautch,  or  dance 
woman.  I,  of  course,  did  not  understand  what  she  was 
singing,  but  the  missionary  who  took  us  to  this  wedding 
said  the  songs  were  so  vile  and  the  minds  of  the  men  so  filled 
with  evil  that  it  was  not  becoming  for  us  to  be  there.  We 
did  not  even  seat  ourselves  but  told  our  usher  we  would  go 
to  the  place  where  we  might  see  the  bride,  or  at  least  the 
women  guests.  He  seemed  very  much  disappointed  that  we 
would  not  put  our  stamp  of  approval  on  the  performance 
by  our  presence,  but  we  would  not  lower  ourselves  even  to 
please  our  host. 


[15 


Bombay,  India. 
Dear  Home  Friends: 

We  have  received  the  Journal  every  week  since  we  have 
been  here  and  we  always  look  forward  to  its  coming  with  as 
much  anticipation  as  our  weekly  bundle  of  letters.  There  is 
nothing  like  the  home  letters  and  the  home  papers,  when 
one  is  so  far  away,  and  although  the  news  is  exactly  four 
weeks  old,  we  devour  every  word. 

First  of  all,  I  want  to  make  some  corrections  in  my  former 
letters  —  I  am  anxious  that  whatever  we  write  may  be  at 
least  truthful.  I  think  I  wrote  that  the  "pie"  is  our  small- 
est coin  here,  and  its  value  is  about  one  sixth  of  a  cent, 
U.  S.  currency.  But  I've  found  that  there  is  a  coin  of 
less  value  used  by  the  natives,  though  not  so  much  in  Bom- 
bay as  in  other  parts  of  India.  It  is  called  a  "cowry"  and 
is  worth  one  one-hundredth  of  our  U.  S.  cent.  It  is  a  shell, 
so  you  can  see  why  it  is  said  that  people  going  marketing 
carry  their  money  in  market  baskets  and  bring  their  purchases 
back  in  their  pockets.  Then  I  gave  the  railroad  rates 
higher  than  they  really  are.  We  have  found  that  when  four 
or  a  half-dozen  persons  or  more  go  together  in  one  compart- 
ment to  the  same  destination  and  on  the  same  sort  of  business, 
they  get  concessions  and  can  travel  comfortably  for  about 
one- third  of  a  cent  per  mile.  Ordinary  travel  is  a  fraction 
of  a  cent  higher.  There  are  advantages  we  have  here  over 
America,  even  if  we  do  have  many  disadvantages,  and  the 
day  is  dawning  when  we  will  have  many  of  the  modern 
conveniences  of  the  western  world.  But  there  are  things 
in  the  West  that  we  hope  will  never  come  here. 

Our  daily  newspaper  is  a  source  of  great  comfort  to  us 
for  it  gives  the  news  of  Bombay  and  of  all  India  and  tele- 
graphic messages  from  all  over  the  world,  leaving  out  every- 
thing along  the  sensational  line.  There  may  be  murders 
in  Bombay,  but  we  never  read  about  them  in  our  daily  paper. 
Then  we  get  articles  in  them  on  leading  questions  of  the  day 
and  instructive  discussions  of  social  problems.     We  never 

[i6] 


have  fearful  railroad  accidents  here  or  anywhere  in  India. 
We  can  cross  railroad  tracks  only  over  bridges,  and  high 
stone  walls  line  all  the  tracks  in  Bombay.  One  is  never  in 
danger  of  being  killed  by  a  shooting  bicycle  or  motor  car; 
as  you  step  off  a  street  car  an  oxcart  may  be  coming  along, 
but  one  can  easily  get  out  of  the  way  as  everything  moves 
so  slowly  here.  And  last,  but  not  least,  we  appreciate  the 
spirit  of  the  people  —  shall  I  call  it  their  native  courtesy? 
I  have  noticed  especially  in  passing  a  group  of  children 
playing  on  the  street  —  they  either  mind  their  own  business 
strictly,  or  rise  and  touch  the  back  of  the  hand  to  the  forehead 
with  '^Salaam,  Memsahib,"  which  is  a  very  poHte  greeting. 
Of  course,  we  did  not  come  here  to  be  honored,  but  it  is  a 
great  comfort  to  know  that  we  need  not  have  stones  thrown 
at  us  or  rude  things  said  to  us  on  the  street.  So  you  see  we 
have  a  few  advantages,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  we  are  in  a 
country  of  so  low  a  civilization. 

I  suppose,  in  America,  no  one  would  think  me  very  large 
of  stature,  but  out  here  I  am  quite  a  giantess.  The  average 
woman  here  is  six  or  eight  inches  shorter  than  I  am  and  has 
about  one  fourth  the  strength.  They  have  no  endurance, 
no  reserve  power,  and  when  disease  comes  upon  them,  they 
perish  like  vapor.  No  wonder  that  the  plague  and  cholera 
sweep  away  half  a  city  at  a  time!  They  are  underfed  and 
have  the  very  faintest  ideas  along  the  line  of  sanitation.  It 
makes  our  hearts  ache  as  we  see  how  cheerless  and  comfort- 
less their  homes  are,  and  how  narrow  and  small  their  lives. 
I  suppose  a  minister  in  America  would  consider  his  duty  well 
done  if  he  called  upon  every  member  of  his  congregation 
four  or  five  times  a  year  —  we  try  to  call  upon  all  of  our 
people  once  a  week.  And  by  a  call  I  do  not  mean  a  polite 
little  visit  of  ten  or  fifteen  minutes,  but  we  take  a  Bible  and 
hymn  book  and  an  interpreter,  and  allow  them  to  call  in 
their  Christian  and  Hindu  and  Mohammedan  neighbors  and 
they  all  sit  on  the  floor  while  a  portion  of  the  Holy  Book  is 
read  and  explained.  Many  of  them  cannot  read,  so  this  is 
the  only  way  they  can  get  to  know  the  truths  of  the  Bible, 
How  strange  it  would  be  in  the  homeland!    And  perhaps 

[17] 


some  one  will  say,  "Why  not  get  a  central  place  and  have  a 
regular  Bible  study  class  once  a  week?"  But,  you  see,  these 
people  could  never  walk  the  distance  necessary  and  of  course 
they  haven't  the  money  to  spend  for  car  fare.  Bible  women 
are  trained  to  do  this  kind  of  work  under  supervision,  and 
in  hundreds  of  heathen  and  Christian  homes  in  Bombay 
to-day  the  Bible  is  read  and  taught.  Thousands  of  people 
are  leading  Christian  lives  in  secret,  and  mothers  are  teaching 
their  children  the  truths  of  Christianity  in  secret,  because 
they  fear  the  persecution  of  their  relatives  if  they  should 
openly  join  our  ranks.  But  India  is  coming  to  Christ.  One 
of  the  most  hopeful  signs  is  the  reform  movement,  now  on 
foot,  by  which  idols  are  thrown  away  with  all  the  filthy  parts 
of  the  Hindu  religion,  and  Christ  and  some  of  the  principles 
of  Christianity  incorporated.  They  do  not  accept  Christ  as 
divine  but  place  him  with  their  heroes.  It  is  a  great  step 
toward  Christianity  and  shows  that  they  are  not  satisfied 
with  their  old  religion  of  filth  and  idolatry.  One  of  the 
most  annoying  duties  of  the  missionary  is  to  receive  and 
treat  kindly  the  Mohammedan  or  Parsee  who  wants  to  argue 
out  points  of  theology.  Yesterday  Mr.  Scholberg  had  a 
Mohammedan  caller,  who  believes  in  the  transmigration 
of  souls.  From  things  that  he  said  it  was  plain  that  he  was 
not  satisfied  with  Mohammedanism,  and  he  wanted  to  argue 
Christianity,  as  though  argument  could  ever  save  a  man  from 
his  sins. 

Besides  the  church  with  all  its  organizations,  Mr.  Schol- 
berg has  three  day  schools  and  a  night  school  and  about  ten 
Sunday  schools  in  different  parts  of  the  city  to  supervise  and 
man  with  workers.  By  the  string  of  people  who  come  to 
his  ofiice  every  day,  you  would  know  he  has  lots  to  look  after. 
In  addition,  we  spend  four  or  five  hours  a  day  on  this  difficult 
language.  It  is  like  Latin  and  Greek  in  its  inflections  and 
like  Sanskrit  in  its  written  form,  and  like  many  of  the  modern 
languages,  especially  German  and  French,  in  its  spoken  form. 
We  are  not  sorry  now  that  we  spent  as  much  time  as  we  did 
on  languages  at  college.  In  a  few  months  Mr.  Scholberg 
expects  to  be  able  to  preach  his  first  sermon  in  it.     It  will  be 

[i8] 


a  short  sermon,  of  course,  and  not  very  grammatical,  I  expect, 
but  it  will  be  worth  the  effort. 

It  is  very  warm  here  now  —  thermometer  registers 
between  70°  and  90°,  but  this  is  the  coolest  season.  We  never 
see  a  heating  stove  in  Bombay,  but  when  we  were  up  country 
at  Conference,  we  saw  the  first  air-tight  since  we  left  America. 
One  of  the  missionaries  was  so  pleased  that  he  said,  "Here's 
our  old  friend,  the  stove.  Come  let's  shake  its  leg."  We 
did  suffer  on  account  of  the  heat  the  first  few  weeks  we  were 
here,  but  we  are  getting  quite  used  to  it  now.  Every  day 
is  the  same  except  a  little  more  breeze  one  day  than  another, 
and  it  is  very  dry  now  and  will  be  until  the  rainy  season 
commences  in  June.  For  three  months,  then,  it  rains  every 
day,  so  that  May  and  September  are  our  hottest  months. 
Our  streets  are  sprinkled  a  great  many  times  a  day  —  they 
are  beginning  to  use  the  same  tank  sprinklers  that  you  see 
in  America,  but  I  saw  one  of  the  old-fashioned  ones  the  other 
day.  It  had  a  single  tube  and  a  boy  ran  along  behind  with 
his  hand  placed  over  the  mouth  of  the  tube  so  that  the  water 
would  spurt  in  all  directions.  Some  one  from  the  West 
must  have  given  them  the  new  idea  sprinkler,  for  these 
people  cannot  figure  out  much  for  themselves.  The  bump 
where  ingenuity  is  supposed  to  lodge  seems  to  be  entirely 
wanting  in  their  phrenological  make-up.  Next  time  I 
shall  make  a  special  effort  to  be  brief. 

Cordially  yours, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


[19] 


Bombay,  India,  April  24,  1907. 
Dear  Friends  at  Home: 

I  imagine  I  never  will  know  less  than  I  do  now  on  the 
subject  of  the  "Indian  Mind,"  a  subject  that  has  been 
treated  by  hundreds  of  globe-trotters, —  so  perhaps  it  is  time 
I  was  displaying  my  lack  of  knowledge. 

We  will  never  come  to  any  agreement  as  to  the  Indian 
mind  except  in  a  few  main  particulars.  Kipling  characterizes 
the  whole  race  by  calling  the  Indian  "half  devil  and  half 
child."  I  am  willing  to  admit  the  last  part  but  one  does  not 
have  to  live  in  India  very  long  before  discovering  that  the 
"divine  likeness"  has  not  been  wholly  obliterated  through 
all  the  centuries  of  filth  and  idolatry  and  ignorance.  There 
is  a  little  good  in  the  midst  of  all  the  evil,  everyone  must 
admit. 

Childish  the  Indian  mind  certainly  is.  No  matter  how 
capable  and  strong-minded  a  man  may  seem  to  be,  he  may 
be  expected  at  any  moment  to  break  out  and  do  the  simplest 
act  you  can  imagine.  It  would  surprise  you  beyond  words 
of  expression  what  small  things  the  best  of  men  are  guilty 
of  doing.  In  a  former  letter  I  have  spoken  of  their  lack  of 
ingenuity  and  inventiveness.  The  Indian  mind  would 
never  be  capable,  if  left  to  itself,  to  discover  a  labor-saving 
device.  I  am  ignorant  as  to  whether  India  has  ever  produced 
a  genius  but  I  doubt  that  she  has.  The  cause  of  this  utter 
lact  of  inventiveness,  constructive  ability, —  call  it  what  you 
will, —  is  in  the  habits  of  the  people.  All  down  through  the 
centuries  they  have  lived  such  thoughtless,  aimless,  purpose- 
less lives  that  the  idea  of  branching  out  and  doing  something 
original  has  been  lost  entirely.  They  are  quite  satisfied  to 
live  just  as  their  ancestors  did  before  them. 

You  have  heard  of  the  Hindu  philosophy  —  the  ability 
of  the  Hindu  mind  to  trace  a  thought  through  all  sorts  of 
intricate  paths  and  finally  reach  logical  conclusions.  Don't 
you  beHeve  in  anything  of  that  sort.  If  you  could  read  the 
Hindu  '^shastras^'  or  scriptures  you  would  find  that  they 

[20] 


contain  the  most  illogical  statements.  Picture  a  Hindu 
priest  on  a  street  corner  with  a  crowd  of  listeners  around  him. 
Does  he  give  them  a  lecture  on  Hinduism,  proving  its  truths 
step  by  step?  No.  He  makes  a  statement  and  then  has 
his  musicians  strike  up  a  tune,  and  after  playing  a  measure  or 
two,  he  makes  another  statement  and  the  musicians  play 
again.  Sometimes  he  varies  it  by  dancing  around,  jingling 
bells  or  even  racing  around  the  circle.  One  time  I  came 
upon  a  group  of  that  kind  and  I  saw  the  ugly  old  priest  look 
my  way  and  start  madly  toward  me.  I  darted  into  a  near-by 
hallway  and  ran  up  two  flights  of  stairs  as  fast  as  I  could  go. 
Now  the  purpose  of  all  this  was  to  keep  the  people's  attention. 
The  priests  know  that  it  is  impossible  for  the  mind  of  the 
people  to  follow  a  thought,  so  they  introduce  all  sorts  of 
variations  to  keep  attention.  It  would  seem  queer  in 
America  for  the  preacher  to  stop  suddenly  in  his  sermon  and 
ask  questions,  but  that  is  the  custom  in  our  churches  here 
and  the  people  know  they  must  be  ready  to  answer  them. 

Concerning  their  evil  natures  the  Indian  is  capable  of 
inventing  and  perpetrating  the  darkest  of  deeds,  but  during 
my  recent  illness  when  I  was  fairly  burning  up  with  fever 
and  my  faithful  nurse  sat  beside  my  bedside  and  fanned  me 
all  night  long,  and  when  she  went  almost  a  whole  day  without 
food  because  she  refused  to  leave  me  though  there  were 
others  to  take  her  place,  I  thought  of  KipUng's  "half  devil 
and  half  child"  and  knew  that  she  did  not  come  under  that 
characterization.  Missionaries  have  a  horror  of  leaving  their 
children  with  these  black  nurses,  but  I  shall  never  be  afraid 
of  trusting  our  precious  little  one  with  her.  There  are  cases 
down  through  the  years  of  Christian  persecution  where  the 
Indian  has  given  his  life  for  the  missionary.  They  can  be 
as  true  to  a  trust  as  any  people  anywhere. 

India  has  suffered  much  because  of  peculiar  social  con- 
ditions and  religious  beliefs.  According  to  the  prevailing 
notion,  the  most  disgraceful  thing  in  the  world  is  to  work, 
and  the  most  honorable  and  respectable  is  to  beg.  Hence 
the  lowest  class  or  caste  is  composed  of  honest  and  dishonest 
laborers  and  in  the  highest  caste  are  those  who  hang  around 

[21] 


the  temples  and  beg.  The  priests  are  nothing  more  than 
beggars.  As  the  people  are  converted  to  Christianity  we 
try  to  teach  them  the  dignity  of  labor;  but  it  is  hard  work 
because  of  the  notions  that  are  ingrained  into  the  very  lives 
of  the  people. 

India  has  yet  to  learn  that,  if  given  a  chance,  women  are 
just  as  capable  as  men.  Very  few  of  the  women  of  this 
country  can  write  their  own  names  —  only  two  out  of  every 
hundred.  The  men  do  not  come  with  their  wives  to  church 
nor  are  they  ever  seen  with  them  on  the  street.  A  woman 
never  takes  her  husband's  name  when  she  marries  but  keeps 
her  maiden  name  with  "Miss"  still  attached.  It  was  quite 
amusing  to  us  when  we  first  came  to  be  asked  what  my  name 
was  and  to  note  their  surprise  when  we  told  them  "Mrs. 
Scholberg." 

We  secretly  rejoice  that  our  baby  is  a  girl  so  that  we 
can  show  them  that  she  is  just  as  worthy  of  affection  as  a  son 
would  be. 

But  I  promised  solemnly  to  be  brief,  so  I  will  leave  the 
rest  for  another  time. 

Cordially  yours, 

Ella  Scholberg. 

This  letter  was  written  by  Mrs.  Scholberg  while  still  in 
the  hospital.  She  is  doing  very  well,  and  the  baby  (Miriam) 
is,  without  any  exception,  the  best  baby  in  India.  She  is 
one  week  old  to-day.  H.  C.  Scholberg. 


[22] 


Naval  Lodge,  Club  Road,  BycuUa,  Bombay. 
Dear  Friends: 

Rain!  rain!  rain!  The  real  monsoon  is  upon  us. 
In  two  weeks  eighty-two  inches  of  rain  has  fallen.  Just  how 
great  an  amount  that  is  you  can  appreciate,  if  I  tell  you 
that  were  it  caught  in  a  huge  reservoir  every  inhabitant  of 
Bombay  (and  there  are  a  million  of  us)  could  have  forty 
gallons  of  water  a  day  for  two  years  —  just  what  has  fallen 
in  Bombay.  Up  country  and  in  the  Deccan  they  have  a 
greater  rainfall  —  in  some  places  a  hundred  and  fifty  inches 
during  the  season.  In  two  weeks  we  have  had  our  entire 
amount  for  the  season  and  it  will  rain  off  and  on  until  the 
middle  of  September.  Oh,  how  wet  it  is!  The  poor  are 
suffering  terribly,  as  their  houses  leak,  and  the  water  comes 
up  above  the  door  sills  also.  The  streets  are  flooded  and  it 
looks  queer  to  see  the  electric  cars  plodding  along  through 
the  water.  Quite  the  most  pitiful  sight  I  have  seen  was 
that  of  a  blind  man  trying  to  make  his  way  along  with  the 
water  up  to  his  waist.  He  was  feeling  around  with  his  stick 
to  find  a  safe  place  to  take  the  next  step.  The  monsoon 
held  off  until  the  middle  of  July  —  it  usually  breaks  early 
in  June  —  and  it  did  look  as  though  we  would  have  a  famine. 
And  now  it  has  rained  so  much  that  the  farmers  cannot  sow 
their  rice,  and  other  grains  previously  planted  cannot  get  a 
chance  to  grow.  Such  a  fickle  climate  —  no  wonder  the 
people  are  so  poor!  But  if  the  truth  were  told,  India  is  a 
land  of  great  productiveness  if  the  people  only  could  learn 
how  to  till  the  soil  and  irrigate  their  farms. 

Our  first  thought  when  a  famine  seemed  imminent  was 
that  no  nation  ought  to  send  relief  to  these  starving  hordes 
when  they  persisted  in  using  a  crooked  stick  to  tickle  the 
soil  a  little  instead  of  having  a  plow,  and  when  they  are  too 
lazy  to  cut  down  the  trees  and  underbrush — for  a  large  part 
of  India  is  not  under  cultivation,  but  is  Just  a  jungle.  The 
people  are  afraid  of  the  wild  beasts  and  they  huddle  in  little 
villages  and  cultivate  only  a  small  portion  of  land  surround- 
ing the  villages.     So  we  thought  that  instead  of  sending 


bread  to  starving  people,  some  philanthropic  country  like 
America  ought  to  send  a  score  or  more  of  men  to  teach  these 
people  how  to  farm.  But  that  would  not  work,  either,  for 
the  people  would  not  be  willing  to  learn.  For,  you  see,  they 
worship  their  ancestors  and  it  would  be  a  very  great  sacrilege 
to  use  a  plow  when  their  ancestors  used  a  crooked  stick. 
And  they  would  not  kill  the  wild  beasts  that  infest  this  land 
for  they  believe  that  the  souls  of  their  ancestors  have  gone 
into  the  lower  animals.  One  would  not  kill  a  deadly  snake 
for  fear  of  killing  his  grandmother !  And  the  superstition  of 
the  people  will  not  allow  them  to  become  good  laborers,  for 
if  a  cat  crosses  a  man's  path  as  he  goes  to  work  in  the  morn- 
ing he  must  go  back  into  the  house  and  stay  all  day.  The 
position  of  the  birds  in  the  trees  with  relation  to  other  objects, 
the  position  of  the  clouds  in  the  sky,  all  portend  something ; 
and  a  man  has  to  walk  very  carefully  or  he  will  offend  some 
of  the  gods,  and  then  woe  betide  the  unfortunate  man!  I 
am  told  that  a  large  part  of  the  Hindu  literature  of  India  is 
taken  up  with  omens,  and  a  very  strange  thing  was  told  us 
the  other  day.  The  Brahmin  and  the  bull  are  the  two  most 
exalted  creatures  of  this  land,  and  the  sweeper  and  the  pig 
the  lowest.  But  if  a  traveler,  in  starting  out  on  his  jour- 
ney, happens  to  meet  either  a  Brahmin  or  a  bull,  his  errand 
will  be  sure  to  end  in  disaster,  so  he  turns  back;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  if  he  sees  a  sweeper  or  a  pig,  it  is  a  most  lucky 
sign  and  he  goes  on  his  journey  with  a  Hght  heart,  feeling 
that  the  gods  are  pleased  with  him  and  his  errand,  and  his 
journey  is  sure  to  end  fortunately.  When  we  are  in  a  rush 
to  catch  a  train,  and  we  see  an  empty  carriage  not  far  from 
the  door,  we  consider  ourselves  in  luck  and  we  jump  into  it 
at  once  without  more  ado.  But  a  Hindu  considers  it  a 
most  unfavorable  sign,  and  would  rather  miss  his  train  or 
postpone  his  journey  another  day  than  to  start  out  on  a 
day  when  his  eyes  fell  upon  any  empty  thing,  from  a  car- 
riage to  a  tin  can. 

Hinduism  is  such  a  complication  of  foolishness  and  super- 
stition that  so  long  as  a  man  remains  a  Hindu,  he  must  be 
of  necessity  an  unfortunate  and  unhappy  man.  So  my 
reasoning  apparatus  tells  me  that  the  only  way  to  make 

[24] 


India  a  land  of  gold  instead  of  a  land  of  poverty  is  to  Chris- 
tianize the  people.  Maybe  I  am  jumping  at  conclusions, 
but  this  is  an  absolute  fact — that  the  Light  of  Christianity  is 
positively  the  only  thing  that  will  dispel  the  darkness  of 
Hinduism. 

I  wonder  if  any  of  you  have  been  at  all  alarmed  about  the 
magazine  articles  that  are  appearing  in  America  on  the  sub- 
ject of ''  Political  Unrest  in  India"?  As  we  see  it,  the  articles 
are  not  exaggerated  —  there  is  certainly  a  great  unrest  and 
dissatisfaction  with  the  present  government. 

Our  pundit  (teacher)  expressed  a  thought  that  I  am 
afraid  is  more  prevalent  than  the  English  government  thinks. 
We  were  speaking  of  a  certain  man  and  he  said,  "  Oh,  he  is  a 
very  great  man  —  he  has  been  convicted  twice  of  sedition." 
The  morning  of  the  fifth  of  July,  when  we  came  down  to  the 
ofl&ce  to  take  our  lessons,  a  Uttle  United  States  flag  that  we 
had  on  the  wall  had  blown  down  and  was  lying  on  the  floor. 
When  I  saw  it  I  picked  it  up  and  said,  "We  must  not  let  Old 
Glory  lie  in  the  dust, "  and  then  I  went  on  to  explain  that  the 
day  before  was  a  great  American  holiday  —  the  day  we 
celebrate  our  independence  —  and  the  pundit  said,  "Yes, 
you  are  proud  of  your  independence  but  you  will  not  let  us 
have  ours,"  and  then  as  if  recalling  that  he  had  spoken 
harshly,  "Of  course  you  Americans  are  not  bitter  against  us 
as  the  EngHsh  are."  We  tried  to  explain  that  the  English 
had  done  a  great  deal  to  uplift  the  Indian  people,  but  he 
could  not  see  it  in  that  way.  They  would  prefer  to  have 
poor  rulers  of  their  own  to  foreign  rulers. 

Let  no  one  be  alarmed  about  us.  I  know  that  there  is 
little  distinction  between  the  English  and  the  American  — 
we  are  white  and  therefore  we  are  all  foreigners  to  them. 
But  there  is  an  army  of  three  million  native  Christians  who 
will  stand  in  front  of  the  little  band  of  missionaries,  and  we 
are  not  afraid.  We  are  more  and  more  satisfied  every  day 
that  we  did  the  right  thing  by  coming  here. 

Next  time  I  think  I  will  tell  you  about  some  of  the  funny 
experiences  we  have  with  our  housekeeping.  We  certainly 
have  no  time  to  be  lonely  or  homesick. 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 

[25] 


Naval  Lodge,  BycuUa,  Bombay,  August  31,  1907. 
Dear  Friends  in  the  Homeland: 

So  I  have  promised  to  tell  you  about  our  domestic  experi- 
ences in  this  strange  country.  I  am  afraid  it  will  have  to 
extend  over  two  letters  for  there  is  so  much  to  tell. 

We  are  living  in  a  new  quarter  of  the  city,  as  you  see. 
The  mission  house  in  Mazagon  is  located  just  below  the 
Mazagon  Hill  and  the  drainage  from  the  Hill  has  long  been 
a  big  question  mark  with  the  health  authorities.  You  see, 
much  of  Bombay  is  below  the  sea  level  and  therefore  the 
problem  of  drainage  is  a  very  serious  one.  Being  new  in 
this  country,  they  decided  that  we  would  better  seek  a  more 
healthful  place  —  after  we  are  acclimated  we  can  live  most 
anywhere.  So  we  are  renting  the  ground  floor  of  "Naval 
Lodge" —  our  landlord  lives  upstairs.  He  is  an  Indian  man 
and  a  Parsee  (fire  worshiper),  and  very,  very  wealthy. 
Besides  owning  a  number  of  beautiful  houses  in  this  city,  he 
owns  a  number  of  steamers.  To  show  you  how  high  rent  is 
in  Bombay,  we  are  paying  thirty-five  dollars  a  month  for 
this  place.  We  have  a  drawing  room,  library  and  dining 
room  and  two  bed  rooms  with  separate  baths,  and  a  small 
store  room.  The  kitchen  and  the  servants'  quarters  are  off 
from  the  house.  We  have  all  modern  plumbing  and  electric 
bells  and  gas  lights.  And  on  two  sides  of  the  house  we 
have  a  wide  screened  veranda  where  we  live  during  most  of 
the  day. 

I  know  of  no  missionary's  wife  who  has  not  wished  again 
and  again  that  she  might  dismiss  her  servants  and  do  all  the 
housework  herself.  But  servants  seem  to  be  necessary 
evils  in  this  country,  for  our  lives  are  too  busy  to  be  tied 
down  to  housework,  and  the  work  itself  is  so  complicated 
and  so  elaborate.  For  instance,  it  is  so  hot  and  dusty  that 
our  houses  must  be  swept  thoroughly  every  morning  and 
dusted  twice  a  day.  Each  day  we  get  the  supplies  for  the 
kitchen  and  as  the  vegetable  and  meat  bazaars  are  several 
miles  away,  we  must  have  a  servant  to  go  and  get  them  every 

[26] 


morning.  There  is  no  such  thing  in  this  country  as  a 
delivery  wagon.  Sometimes  we  can  get  fruit  at  the  door 
from  a  man  who  carries  around  a  basket  of  it  on  his  head. 
Yesterday  we  went  down  town  to  get  a  carriage  for  baby. 
Some  time  in  the  course  of  a  week  a  man  will  come  wheeling 
it  along.  It  will  be  a  day's  work  and  we  will  pay  him  a 
day's  wages — seven  or  eight  cents.  Every  business  house 
keeps  a  large  number  of  servants,  called  coolies,  who  act  as 
delivery  men. 

We  have  only  three  servants  about  the  house  regularly, 
a  cook,  table  boy,  and  Miriam's  nurse.  The  man  who  owns 
the  house  keeps  the  gardener.  Our  pundit,  or  teacher,  comes 
every  morning  from  nine  to  ten  and  our  washerwoman  comes 
whenever  she  is  moved  to  do  so.  Like  many  another  person 
in  this  country,  she  thinks  she  makes  a  great  deal  more 
money  by  taking  a  long  time  to  do  our  washing.  We  pay 
her  fifty  cents  a  washing,  regardless  of  how  large  it  is,  and 
she  thinks  if  she  gets  in  only  three  washings  a  month  she  is 
making  more  money,  i.e.,  sa\dng  herself  a  lot  of  exertion, 
than  by  doing  four  or  five.  Time  is  nothing  to  these 
people. 

My  cook  is  rather  an  independent  sort  of  a  fellow.  He 
is  a  Hindu  and  therefore  a  caste  man  and  I  was  not  very 
much  surprised  the  other  day  when  I  asked  him  to  sweep  the 
veranda  to  have  him  say,  ''No,  memsahib,  that  is  not  my 
work."  I  told  him  he  did  not  have  much  cooking  to  do  for 
just  us  two,  but  he  said  he  would  do  anything  I  asked  him 
to  do  inside  the  house  but  he  could  not  sweep  the  veranda 
for  some  one  might  see  him  and  think  he  was  a  sweeper 
instead  of  a  cook.  The  sweeper  caste  is  one  of  the  lowest. 
He  is  a  very  good  cook  and  takes  all  the  responsibility  of 
furnishing  our  food.  When  we  have  company  I  tell  him 
how  many  are  coming,  and  he  sees  that  sufficient  food  is 
prepared  and  sees  that  the  boy  serves  it  in  proper  order.  I 
never  know  what  we  are  going  to  have  to  eat  unless  I  order 
a  special  dish,  and  I  have  not  yet  found  him  drunk  under 
the  kitchen  table,  so  we  think  he  is  extra  fine.  Like  all 
other  cooks,  he  makes  a  good  deal  off  our  bazaaring,  for  he 

[27] 


charges  me  more  than  the  supplies  cost,  but  I  could  not  buy 
them  at  the  price  he  does,  so  I  don't  see  why  he  shouldn't 
have  what  he  makes.  I  have  neither  the  time  nor  the 
patience  to  stand  and  dicker  with  the  shop  keepers  and  he 
has,  so  of  course  he  gets  them  cheaper.  And  a  white  face 
always  has  to  pay  more  than  a  black  one. 

Our  boy  is  one  of  our  own  Christian  orphan  boys.  He  is 
twenty  years  old,  he  thinks,  but  he  is  called  a  boy  because 
he  does  our  table  work  and  is  general  servant  about  the 
house.  He  carries  letters  and  hails  carriages  for  us  and 
blacks  our  boots  and  sets  the  tables  and  washes  dishes  and 
sweeps  the  drawing  room  and  library  and  dining  room  and 
locks  all  the  doors  and  windows  at  night  and  takes  in  things 
from  the  veranda.  He  is  a  good  servant,  we  think,  although 
we  never  will  have  as  good  a  boy  as  our  first  boy  in  India, 
who  died  of  plague  in  March. 

Miriam's  ayah  is  also  a  Christian  —  a  Roman  Catholic. 
She  not  only  takes  care  of  Miriam  but  she  looks  after  the 
mending  and  is  quite  clever  for  an  Indian  girl  with  a  needle. 
She  puts  in  a  great  many  stitches  here  and  there.  The 
wages  of  a  tailor  are  from  twenty  to  twenty-five  cents  a  day, 
so  for  a  month  or  so  every  year  we  will  have  one  come  in  and 
do  up  all  the  sewing. 

Although  supplies  and  servants  are  very  much  cheaper 
here  than  in  America,  it  costs  us  just  four  times  as  much  to 
live  here  as  it  would  in  America,  and  that  is  not  counting 
our  rent.  If  I  could  have  just  one  servant  and  manage  things 
myself,  I  know  I  could  make  ends  meet  and  lap  over,  because 
I  would  use  up  all  the  odds  and  ends  that  under  the  servant 
rule  are  thrown  away  or  appropriated  by  them.  And  our 
clothes  wear  out  so  soon  because  of  the  primitive  washing 
machines  in  this  country !  They  beat  our  clothes  over  stones 
to  get  them  clean  and  beat  them  to  pieces  in  a  short  time. 
We  have  to  use  cotton  table  cloths  and  napkins,  for  they 
would  soon  ruin  linen  ones.  And  if  I  give  an  embroidered 
waist  to  the  washerwoman  she  is  sure  to  put  her  mark  in 
indelible  ink  right  square  in  the  front  of  the  waist. 

If  there  is  any  place  on  this  old  earth  of  ours  where 

[28] 


''Grin  and  bear  it"  can  be  used  to  good  advantage,  it  is  in 
this  country.  And  one  comforting  thought  is  that  we  will 
never  run  out  of  things  to  grin  at  —  excuse  the  inelegance  of 
the  expression.  We  will  confess  that  it  is  a  little  trying 
sometimes,  but  we  are  willing  to  take  the  bitter  for  the  sake 
of  the  sweet.  And  we  know  that  we  have  possessions  that 
the  washerwoman  cannot  ruin,  the  white  ants  cannot  eat, 
the  rains  cannot  mildew,  and  the  servants  cannot  break  or 
destroy. 

I  hope  you  have  been  enjoying  the  articles  in  the  Out- 
look on  the  Japanese.  After  all,  all  Oriental  people  are 
very  much  alike.  The  Japanese  and  the  Chinese  are  more 
clever  than  the  Indians  and  are  capable  of  a  higher  develop- 
ment, we  will  grant,  but  I  am  quite  con\dnced  that  there  are 
no  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth  that  are  more  clever  at 
begging  and  stealing  than  the  people  of  India.  The  out- 
stretched, open  hand  is  the  best  symbol  of  India.  There  is 
an  organization  which  has  charge  of  what  is  called  ''The 
Indian  Christian  Poor  Fund,"  but  I  am  not  sure  that  it  is 
accompHshing  the  purpose  for  which  it  stands.  It  is  the 
old,  old  question  of  sociology  —  whether  we  are  helping  these 
people  to  become  more  helpless.  We  try  to  make  them  see 
that  they  are  responsible  for  their  own  welfare  and  must  take 
some  thought  for  themselves,  but  their  ancestors  for  cen- 
turies have  lived  by  begging  and  stealing  and  they  think  they 
can.  Some  of  our  Christians  from  up  country  think  that 
Bombay  is  a  good  place  to  make  money  and  they  just  come 
down  without  any  money  on  hand  or  any  friends  here  and 
expect  that  we  will  take  care  of  them  until  they  can  get 
work,  or  if  they  can't  get  work  they  think  we  will  pay  their 
expenses  back  to  their  country.  And  we  have  to  be  so 
hard-hearted  because  they  will  never  learn  to  walk  if  we  keep 
a  cradle  for  them  to  rock  in.  In  America  people  think  tramps 
are  a  nuisance  —  we  have  ten  times  as  many  here.  And  the 
cripples,  and  lepers,  and  blind,  and  poor  —  how  pitiful  it  is ! 
Be  glad  that  you  were  born  in  America  in  a  land  of  inde- 
pendence. How  much  we  would  like  to  teach  the  people  of 
India  to  stand  up  and  prove  themselves  worthy  of  self 

[29l 


government.     They  do  like  to  lean  up  against  somebody 
and  take  all  they  can  get. 

Give  our  love  to  all  who  still  remember  us;  jog  up  the 
memory  of  those  who  do  not. 

Cordially  yours, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


[30] 


Naval  Lodge,  Club  Road,  Byculla, 
Bombay,  India,  October  25,  1907. 
Dear  Home  Friends: 

We  have  been  in  the  hills  for  a  little  rest  and  change  from 
the  heat  and  fever  of  Bombay.  I  wish  you  could  get  a 
ghmpse  from  the  car  window  of  this  beautiful  scenery.  Just 
after  the  monsoon  everything  is  green  and  fresh  and  the 
grand  old  hills  take  on  quite  a  new  beauty.  Grass  is  growing 
at  least  six  feet  tall  and  it  effectually  covers  the  old  weather- 
beaten  stone  wall  that  runs  along  the  track  on  either  side. 
There  is  nothing  regular  or  systematic  in  this  view  of  nature, 
for  the  strong  winds  of  this  country  twist  the  trees  all  out  of 
shape,  and  the  heavy  rains  cause  the  rankest  kind  of  a  jungle 
to  spring  up  in  the  valleys  between  the  hills.  But  its  rugged- 
ness  makes  it  grand.  The  painter  has  not  planned  his 
picture  with  an  eye  to  proportion  and  exactness,  but  has 
allowed  his  fancy  to  run  wild  and  unchecked,  and,  after  all, 
these  are  the  master  touches.  We  have  seen  only  a  small 
portion  of  India  but  we  are  sure  that  it  can  boast  of  some 
magnificent  scenery. 

This  piece  of  railroad  up  the  Ghats  is  one  of  the  finest 
examples  of  railroad  engineering  in  the  world,  they  say.  It 
is  surely  daring,  for  we  jump  from  mountain  peak  to  moun- 
tain peak  and  whirl  around  on  some  of  the  narrowest  ledges 
and  shoot  through  tunnels  as  dark  as  night.  In  one  place 
we  come  down  such  a  dangerous  grade  that  every  driver  (as 
they  call  the  engineer  in  this  country)  must  stop  his  train 
right  in  the  middle  of  a  long  tunnel.  He  must  come  to  a 
dead  stop,  then  whistle,  and  go  on  again.  If  he  cannot  stop 
his  train,  he  gives  a  danger  signal  and  switchmen  down  the 
track  turn  on  the  switch,  and  the  train  is  run  up  a  steep  grade 
to  stop  it.  This  grade  is  built  expressly  for  that  purpose, 
for  if  a  train  could  not  be  stopped  it  would  run  over  a  ter- 
ribly steep  embankment.  It  is  said  that  only  once  in  the 
history  of  this  road  has  a  driver  been  unable  to  stop  his 
train.     Of  course,  all  this  road  is  under  very  careful  super- 

[31] 


vision  and  is  inspected  every  day.  The  railroad  company 
has  a  man  stationed  every  six  miles  whose  duty  it  is  to  walk 
over  the  track  to  the  next  man's  station  and  report  if  there 
is  any  defect  in  the  road.  Now,  of  course,  these  men  are 
lazy  and  to  make  it  imperative  that  every  man  actually 
walk  the  twelve  miles  a  day,  what  device  do  you  think  the 
company  has  thought  of?  It  is  so  simple!  Each  man  is 
given  a  book  and  when  he  walks  the  six  miles  to  his  neighbor 
he  exchanges  books  with  him.  So  at  night  each  man  shows 
the  inspector  his  neighbor's  book,  and  the  next  night  his  own. 

I  think  I  have  not  mentioned  in  my  letters  a  class  of 
people  in  this  country  who  comprise  a  substantial  part  of  the 
population.  They  are  the  Eurasians  and  you  can  easily 
see  they  have  a  mixture  of  English  and  Indian  blood.  But 
it  offends  them  deeply  to  be  called  Eurasians,  so  we  politely 
term  them  Anglo-Indians  and  their  pride  is  not  rufSed.  I 
haven't  yet  studied  out  the  difference  between  the  two  names. 
However,  they  have  sprung  up  because  of  intermarriage 
between  the  English  and  the  natives,  and  they  partake  of  the 
natures  of  the  two  races.  They  dress  like  the  English,  but 
many  of  them  are  very,  very  black.  They  try  to  live  like 
the  English,  but  as  workmen  they  cannot  command  very 
big  salaries,  so  their  style  shows  itself  only  in  exterior  things. 
They  are  so  proud  that  they  spurn  the  natives,  and  the 
thought  of  doing  anything  in  the  form  of  manual  labor  is 
very  repulsive  to  them.  They  live  in  the  same  shiftless, 
lazy  fashion  as  the  natives  but  they  have  a  servant  at  their 
heels.  True,  some  of  the  finest  people  of  India  come  from 
this  class  —  but  I  have  given  you  the  traits  of  a  large  propor- 
tion of  them.  They  have  more  brains  than  the  natives  and 
some  of  them  have  risen  to  positions  of  great  responsibility. 
Some  are  so  white,  too,  that  one  would  take  them  to  be  pure 
English.  Because  of  being  born  here,  they  can  stand  the 
climate  better  than  the  English.  Many  of  them  go  to 
England  and  America  for  university  training  and  they  prove 
acceptable  workmen  over  here. 

We  have  met  the  American  consul  here  and  have  had  our 
little  daughter  registered  as  an  American  child  born  on  a 

[32] 


foreign  shore.  We  meet  a  great  many  American  people  and 
we  love  them  more  than  ever.  How  dear  America  is  to  us 
and  how  we  prize  "Old  Glory"!  Was  it  the  senator  from 
Indiana  who  said  that  "Next  to  the  Cross  of  Christ,  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  is  heaven's  holiest  symbol"? 

Yours  most  cordially, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


[33  1 


Bombay,  India,  December  8,  1907. 
Dear  Friends  at  Home: 

Just  one  year  ago  this  morning  we  woke  up  for  the  first 
time  in  India.  The  first  sounds  that  forced  themselves  upon 
our  ears  were  the  chants  of  the  beggars  on  the  street  and  the 
cawing  of  the  crows  in  the  trees  of  the  compound.  How 
strange  it  all  seemed  then!  And  what  a  strange  country 
this,  which  we  would  call  "home"  for  the  rest  of  our  mortal 
lives !  But  it  does  not  seem  strange  now.  We  have  become 
quite  used  to  the  peculiar  customs  and  manners  of  these 
people. 

During  the  three  weeks  and  six  days  on  the  ocean,  we 
had  traveled  back  into  history  about  four  thousand  years. 
A  long  distance  to  travel  in  four  weeks!  When  we  landed 
at  Ballard  Pier  and  had  left  the  wharf,  with  all  the  bustle  of 
a  commercial  city,  and  had  gone  into  the  heart  of  the  native 
city,  we  saw  people  living  exactly  as  their  fathers  had  lived 
centuries  and  centuries  ago,  with  all  the  degradation  of  ages 
clinging  to  the  wheels  of  their  living  machinery.  How 
pitiable  a  sight,  and  how  glad  we  were  that  we  had  come  to 
lift  them  out  of  it  all,  and  up  to  the  light  of  a  better  life! 
We  are  ten  years  older  in  experience,  but  I  am  sure  we  are 
ten  years  younger  in  enthusiasm;  we  loved  these  people 
while  we  were  in  America  —  we  love  them  ten  times  more 
now.     Yes,  even  with  all  their  deformities  and  peculiarities. 

This  has  been  one  of  the  happiest  years  of  our  fives  —  I 
think  I  could  almost  say  the  happiest.  I  would  not  have  to 
stretch  the  truth  to  say  that  it  is  the  one  year  of  our  fives 
when  it  seemed  most  that  living  was  worth  while.  Just 
to  be  alive  in  these  great  days  when  such  tremendous  enter- 
prises are  being  conceived  in  the  minds  of  great  men,  and  to 
be  engaged  in  this  great  missionary  enterprise  —  surely 
living  is  worth  while.  Of  course  the  Great  Master  could 
bring  his  children  of  India  back  to  himself,  without  our 
coming  here  —  but  we  are  mightily  glad  He  allowed  us  to 
come,  if  only  to  see  His  triumphs  and  understand  Him  better 

[34] 


and  His  great  Book.  How  much  more  the  Bible  means 
to  us  now,  after  being  near  the  place  where  it  was  originally 
written,  and  how  much  clearer  its  figures,  and  its  poetry,  and 
its  parables. 

From  a  material  standpoint,  we  are  just  as  well  ofif  as 
when  we  landed.  We  have  neither  of  us  lost  any  avoirdupois. 
The  sahib  (as  he  is  called  here)  has  had  only  one  attack  of 
malaria  —  I  can  boast  of  sixteen.  I  am  aware  that  that  is 
not  a  good  record,  but  it  is  nothing  to  be  concerned  about  and 
I  am  sure  I  will  do  better  another  year.  I  am  well  and 
strong  and  as  able  to  do  as  many  things  a  day  as  I  could  in 
America. 

Concerning  our  work  here,  it  is  our  idea  that  the  more  we 
keep  the  people  Indian,  the  happier  will  be  the  outcome;  we 
do  not  believe  in  plastering  a  western  civilization  onto  them, 
causing  them  to  give  up  their  own  Indian  manners  and 
customs.  We  try  to  teach  them  to  love  their  country  and 
stand  up  for  all  that  is  noble  and  good  in  it.  We  do  not  want 
them  to  discard  their  Indian  clothes  and  dress  like  us  nor 
do  we  want  them  to  like  our  food  stuffs.  We  do  want  them 
to  smash  or  burn  their  idols,  because  their  gods  are  supposed 
to  have  lived  such  wicked  lives  and  it  is  the  wickedness 
alone  that  is  worshiped.  We  would  like  to  have  them  think 
more  about  the  training  of  their  minds  then  the  filling  of 
their  stomachs,  however  important  a  subject  the  latter  may 
become  at  times.  We  want  them  to  be  decent  in  their 
treatment  of  their  fellow  travelers.  We  haven't  as  high 
ideals  for  them  as  we  would  have  for  more  capable  folk, 
because  we  consider  what  they  came  from  only  a  century 
ago,  and  a  century  of  Christianity  is  not  long  enough  to  turn 
out  a  finished  product.  We  want  them  daily  to  draw 
strength  from  a  Superior  Source  to  fight  their  daily  battles 
and  temptations.  We  have  disappointments  —  oh,  you  do 
not  know  how  bitter!  and  heartaches,  and  longings!  But 
out  treasure  house  is  not  empty,  our  palace  is  not  in  ruins, 
and  the  walls  of  our  strongholds  have  not  crumbled  to  dust. 
We  know  we  shall  not  fail. 

When  you  are  reading  this,  the  New  Year  shall  have 

[35  I 


dawned,  with  all  its  promises  and  responsibilities.  May  we 
all  be  true.  Upon  all  shoulders  new  burdens  will  be  laid  — 
may  we  all  be  brave  and  strong. 

Sincerely  yours, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


[36 


Bombay,  India,  February  14,  1908. 
Dear  Friends: 

Excitement  reigns  supreme  these  days.  This  is  the 
great  Mohammedan  festival  week,  yesterday  witnessing  the 
close  of  the  ceremonies.  All  week  the  poUce  have  been  busy 
night  and  day,  and  yesterday  the  militia  had  to  be  called  out 
to  stop  the  riot  on  an  important  corner.  About  a  dozen 
persons  lost  their  lives  and  a  dozen  more  are  laid  up  in 
hospitals.  All  our  Christian  schools  were  closed,  as  we 
deemed  it  unwise  to  force  our  teachers  to  be  on  the  streets, 
and  I  have  kept  strictly  indoors.  The  sahih  ventures  out, 
but  of  course  he's  a  man.  Hindu  holidays  are  bad  enough, 
but  Mohammedan  affairs  are  even  worse.  Now  compare 
these  with  our  beautiful  Christmastide,  when  "peace,  good 
will"  reigns  in  Christian  hearts  the  world  over. 

The  next  sensational  piece  of  news  I  have  is  that  we  have 
been  robbed.  We  were  away  at  Dhulia  in  Khaudesh  (near 
Central  Provinces)  for  a  week,  and  we  went  through  one  of 
the  government  prisons,  and  on  another  day  climbed  to 
the  top  of  the  highest  hill  in  that  region  and  went  through 
the  ruins  of  an  old,  old  fort,  on  the  very  crest  of  the  hill. 
We  were  on  our  way  to  Bombay  when  a  message  overtook 
us  that  we  had  been  robbed  —  our  house  had  been  entered. 
Just  how  serious  a  matter  it  was,  we  realized  when  we  got 
home.  In  this  country  when  folks  leave  home  they  put 
everything  in  the  care  of  the  servants  and  hold  them  responsi- 
ble. I  have  always  before  locked  up  my  choicest  things, 
but  robbers  would  have  no  trouble  breaking  cupboards  open 
and  such  things.  This  time  I  left  everything  out,  except  the 
silver,  which  was  locked  in  the  sahiVs  desk,  because  we  did 
not  expect  to  be  gone  more  than  a  few  days.  It  was  not  a 
first-class  robbery,  as  shown  by  the  fact  that  they  made  no 
attempt  to  force  open  the  sahib^s  desk,  and  what  they  left 
was  more  valuable  than  what  they  took.  For  instance,  they 
took  five  napkins  of  one  set  and  left  six,  and  two  of  another 
set  and  left  ten.     But  they  took  a  table  cover  of  drawn-work 


[37 


that  I  bought  at  Gibraltar,  which,  although  not  valuable, 
I  will  never  be  able  to  replace  unless  we  go  there  again,  and 
another  hardanger  piece  that  sister  Maud  put  hours  and 
hours  of  work  on.  Miriam's  new  doll  and  silver  spoon  are 
gone  and  the  fine  wool  quilt  that  mother  Scholberg  made 
for  us.  We  reported  at  once  to  the  police  and  they  are 
working  on  the  case,  being  interrupted  somewhat  by  this 
Mohammedan  festival.  They  believe  our  butler  was  the 
culprit  and  the  cook  was  a  sort  of  an  accomplice,  and  they 
believe  it  so  strongly  that  they  are  torturing  them  to  make 
them  confess.  You  perhaps  have  heard  of  the  "tender 
mercies"  of  the  Indian  police,  but  it  is  one  way  to  make  an 
Indian  man  confess  theft.  I  will  recover  the  value  of  the 
goods,  in  a  way,  as  I  can  take  it  out  of  the  servant's  salary, 
but  some  of  the  things  that  were  precious  because  of  their 
associations  can  never  be  replaced.  Both  servants  have 
begged  me  to  let  them  work  a  whole  year  on  almost  nothing, 
to  make  it  square,  but  that  is  another  proof  that  they  are 
guilty  and  do  not  want  their  reputation  spoiled,  and  I'm  not 
anxious  to  have  thieves  at  such  close  range. 

Mr.  Scholberg  has  just  come  home  and  he  says  the  militia 
has  been  out  to-day  also,  as  this  is  the  great  Mohammedan 
prayer  day  after  their  riots.  I  hope  they  managed  to  get 
through  their  prayers  all  right  without  any  lives  being  lost. 

Cordially  yours, 

Ella  Scholberg. 


[38 


BACKWARD   THINGS   IN  INDIA 

1.  "Turn  to  the  left"  is  the  law  of  the  street. 

2.  The  milkman  sits  on  the  left  side  of  the  cow  to  milk. 

3.  Keys  turn  backward  in  the  locks. 

4.  The  bridegroom  buys  the  bride's  wedding  clothes. 

5.  The  bridegroom's  father  invites  the  guests  to  the 
wedding,  and  I  suppose  pays  the  expenses. 

6.  The  shake  of  the  head  that  means  "no"  in  America, 
means  "yes"  here. 

7.  A  horse  is  tied  by  the  hind  foot  instead  of  by  the 
head. 

8.  Men  are  served  before  women.  The  man  is  the  boss 
of  the  house. 

9.  A  caller  is  told  when  it  is  time  to  leave,  instead  of 
taking  leave  of  his  own  accord. 

10.  "It  is  more  blessed  to  get  than  to  give." 

11.  To  call  a  person  from  a  distance  he  is  waved  away 
instead  of  beckoned. 

12.  Instead  of  taking  oflf  one's  hat  as  a  matter  of  respect, 
these  people  put  on  their  headgear  when  they  come  into  our 
presence,  and  take  off  their  shoes  and  leave  them  outside. 

13.  At  a  party,  refreshments  are  served  first,  not  last. 

14.  Begging  is  a  profession,  instead  of  a  disgrace. 

15.  Dishonesty  is  the  best  policy,  and  the  devil  is  wor- 
shiped instead  of  God. 


[39] 


Bombay,  India,  April  15,  1908. 
Dear  Friends: 

The  prevailing  notion,  I  think,  in  the  minds  of  most 
people  concerning  the  condition  of  people  in  India  is  that 
they  are  helplessly  poverty-stricken.  I  cannot  now  recall 
what  our  old  geographies  say  about  this,  but  I  am  going  to 
give  you  some  of  my  discoveries  along  this  line,  and  if  my 
opinion  differs  from  that  of  the  geography,  by  all  means 
believe  the  geography.  In  America,  to  be  poor  means  to 
lack  sufficient  food  and  fuel,  and  to  wear  patched  clothing. 
In  this  country  to  be  poor  means  to  have  no  food,  fuel,  or 
clothing,  and  to  sleep  on  the  street.  In  America  there  are 
the  extremely  rich  and  the  extremely  poor  and  a  great  middle 
class  of  hard-working  folk  who  maintain  themselves  by  their 
own  efforts.  In  this  country  there  are  the  extremely  rich 
and  the  great  mass  of  extremely  poor.  As  far  as  I  can  see 
there  is  no  middle  class.  Now,  why  are  the  people  so 
poor? 

First,  a  large  percentage  of  the  people  are  dependent 
upon  the  fruit  of  the  soil,  as  in  all  countries.  And  India 
is  a  land  of  gold  in  that  respect.  There  are  two,  three,  and 
even  four  crops  a  year,  and  the  greatest  variety  of  fruits  and 
vegetables.  If  the  people  would  be  willing  to  learn  some- 
thing about  agriculture,  this  land  would  be  wonderfully 
productive.  But  they  say,  "  Why  should  we  use  a  plow  when 
a  crooked  stick  was  plenty  good  enough  for  our  ancestors?" 
That  is  why  our  mission  has  so  many  industrial  schools  for 
orphan  boys,  who  will  never  know  what  their  forefathers 
used.  Then  this  plan  of  having  all  the  rain  during  two  and 
one  half  months  of  the  year  and  all  the  remainder  of  the  year 
hot  and  dry  does  not  help  matters.  What  they  want  is 
irrigation,  and  the  government  is  teaching  the  people  that 
by  digging  wells  all  through  agricultural  districts.  A  large 
part  of  India  is  just  a  jungle,  and  the  people  are  too  much 
afraid  of  the  wild  animals  that  infest  these  jungles,  and  too 
lazy  to  cut  down  the  trees.  Besides,  the  spirits  of  their 
forefathers  dwell  in  these  wild  animals,  so  how  dare  they 
kill  them? 

[40] 


By  nature  the  people  are  shiftless  and  care-free  and  if 
they  have  enough  for  one  meal,  why  trouble  themselves 
about  the  next?  If  they  have  anything  left  over  after  they 
have  bought  a  meal,  they  get  some  worthless  trinkets  for  the 
children  or  give  it  to  some  poor  beggar.  It  never  occurs 
to  them  that  perhaps  some  day  they  may  be  beggars  them- 
selves. They  do  not  understand  the  art  of  saving  up  for  a 
needy  day,  nor  do  they  trust  anyone  to  keep  money  for 
them.  We  have  thought  of  having  a  mission  savings  bank 
and  take  care  of  their  small  savings  ourselves,  and  have  it 
arranged  in  such  a  way  that  they  cannot  draw  out  their 
money  to  squander  it,  whenever  a  holiday  comes  along. 
I  don't  know  that  they  would  have  enough  faith  in  us  to  let 
us  keep  their  money  for  them.  We  are  foreigners  to  them 
and  they  hate  anything  foreign.  I  told  one  of  our  pastors 
one  day  that  instead  of  paying  out  ten  rupees  a  month  to  a 
man  to  take  care  of  the  church  garden,  it  would  be  a  fine  idea 
for  his  boy  and  other  boys  to  take  care  of  the  garden  and 
earn  that  money  to  buy  their  school  books  and  he  scoffed  at 
the  idea.  It  might  work  in  America  but  it  would  never  do 
for  India,  he  said,  because  an  Indian  boy  would  never  be  a 
gardener  unless  his  father  were  a  gardener  before  him.  I 
told  him  that  Mr.  Scholberg  earned  a  part  of  his  high  school 
expenses  by  taking  care  of  a  church,  and  he  wouldn't  have 
his  Ph.  B.  if  he  hadn't  been  willing  to  do  butler's  work.  He 
said  it  was  all  right  for  us,  but  Indian  people  were  quite  above 
any  such  notion  as  that.  They  are  very  proud,  and  cling  to 
their  own  customs  like  flies  to  sticky  flypaper. 

The  mission  has  a  plan  of  helping  the  widow  of  a  worker 
in  the  mission,  by  a  pension.  It  is  a  small  amount  and  ranges 
from  one  doUar  to  three  a  month  according  to  the  needs  of  the 
family.  I  have  opposed  it  from  the  very  day  I  heard  of  it. 
We  have  a  worker  and  his  wife  who  spend  every  cent  of  their 
earnings  on  their  bare  living.  I  asked  the  man  one  day  what 
his  wife  would  do  when  he  died,  and  he  said  confidently, 
"Oh,  the  mission  will  take  care  of  her,"  and  I  told  him  I  was 
not  so  sure  about  it  —  she  wouldn't  get  any  help  unless  he 
tried  to  save  up  a  little.     If  there  is  anything  I  am  decided 

[41] 


upon,  it  is  that  we  are  defeating  our  own  aims  if  we  teach  these 
people  to  be  dependent  upon  us. 

India  has  frequent  famines  for  these  very  reasons  I  have 
given:  the  fickle  climate  and  the  unwillingness  of  the 
people  to  save.  The  people  love  jewelry,  and  the  govern- 
ment can  always  tell  the  severity  and  extent  of  a  famine 
by  the  amount  of  jewelry  that  comes  into  the  mint  to  be 
melted  down.  It  is  the  last  thing  the  people  will  part  with, 
and  they  part  with  that  only  when  starvation  is  actually  the 
next  thing.  Of  course,  when  the  cry  of  suffering  humanity 
goes  up,  all  nations  come  to  the  rescue.  That  sympathy  for 
a  brother  sufferer  is  very  precious  and  I  would  not  have  it 
destroyed  for  all  the  world,  but  I  wish  that  in  some  way  the 
Indian  people  might  be  made  to  feel  that  a  day  might  come 
when  every  nation  may  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  their  cry  for  help. 
We  are  working  so  hard  to  teach  them  to  take  thought  for 
themselves.  They  lack  foresight  to  a  pitiful  degree.  To 
illustrate  again,  a  horse  one  time  dropped  on  the  street  not 
far  from  our  house,  as  the  result  of  a  sunstroke.  It  was  five 
o'clock  in  the  evening  and  the  sun  still  hot.  It  was  an 
imported  horse,  I  think,  and  was  not  wearing  a  hat.  (Yes, 
the  horses  have  to  wear  hats  out  here  —  not  Easter  bonnets, 
but  just  a  plain  flat  piece  of  pith  covered  with  canvas,  with 
two  holes  for  their  ears  to  stick  through  to  keep  them  on, 
for  of  course  they  are  not  civilized  enough  to  have  hat  pins.) 
As  soon  as  the  horse  dropped  a  veterinary  surgeon  was  called 
and  everything  was  done  for  the  poor  beast.  As  darkness 
came  on  he  was  dragged  to  a  vacant  lot  and  a  bed  was  made 
for  him.  In  the  morning  he  seemed  much  better  and  the 
surgeon  ordered  bamboo  poles  brought  and  a  covering  made 
to  protect  him  from  the  hot  sun.  But  in  this  slow-going  East 
the  poles  did  not  arrive  until  the  poor  horse  was  dead.  Now, 
an  American  farmer  would  have  studied  the  matter  out  like 
this:  In  all  probability,  other  things  being  equal,  the  sun 
would  rise  on  the  morrow.  Of  course  it  might  not,  but  the 
chances  would  be  that  it  would.  Therefore  he  would  have 
worked  through  all  the  weary  hours  of  the  night  getting  a 
covering  up,   or  transferring  the  beast  to  a  comfortable 

[42] 


stable.  The  Indian  man  first  waits  until  the  sun  does 
actually  rise  before  he  makes  any  provision  for  it. 

Another  chief  cause  for  their  poverty  is  their  habit  of 
being  always  in  debt.  Debts  are  handed  down  from  father 
to  son,  like  heirlooms.  If  we  take  pity  on  them  and  clear  up 
their  debts,  the  very  next  day  they  will  contract  others. 
Hundreds  of  people  have  come  to  us  to  borrow  money  and 
we  always  tell  them  that  we  are  not  in  the  money  loaning 
business.  They  borrow  their  neighbors'  things  and  try  to 
pawn  them  on  us.  Mr.  Scholberg  has  twelve  men  to  pay 
every  month, — mission  workers  they  are, — and  they  have  often 
come  to  ask  for  their  money  before  it  was  due.  They  always 
live  in  advance  of  their  salaries  and  two  hours  after  they  get 
it,  it  is  all  spent.     Then  they  live  on  credit  until  next  pay-day. 

I  have  portrayed  some  of  the  weaknesses  of  the  Indian 
people,  but  after  all  they  are  very  human  and  like  other 
people.  They  are  not  all  weak,  either,  and  whether  they  are 
weak  or  strong,  they  are  worth  while  working  for. 

Sincerely  yours, 

Ella  Scholberg. 


[43] 


Bombay,  July  lo,  1908. 
Dear  Home  Friends: 

This  ancestral  worship  business  that  I  touched  upon  in 
my  last  letter  is  one  of  the  drawbacks  to  the  progress  of 
India.  We  get  so  weary  of  treating  cases  that  come  to  our 
door  that  we  are  quite  rude  sometimes,  I  am  afraid.  A 
strong,  able-bodied  young  man  came  asking  for  bread.  We 
suggested  that  he  work  like  most  folks  have  to  do  for  their 
bread,  but  he  said  he  could  not  get  work.  But  we  know 
that  coolie  work  is  always  obtainable,  so  we  bravely  suggested 
that.  He  met  us  with  the  deepest  scorn,  saying,  "My 
father  never  worked  as  a  coolie,  so  why  should  I?"  and  Mr. 
Scholberg  immediately  retorXed,  "Well,  my  father  never 
had  a  ragged,  dirty  young  man  like  you  sitting  on  his  door- 
step, so  why  should  I?"  With  that  he  took  his  polite  leave 
and  we  have  not  seen  him  since.  I  expect  he  is  still  wander- 
ing the  earth  somewhere  wrapped  in  profound  admiration 
of  his  illustrious  ancestor  who  never  worked  as  a  coolie. 
It  is  not  disgraceful  to  be  a  coolie  —  it  is  just  to  be  an  errand 
boy,  or  a  worker  in  the  street,  but  to  beg  is  more  honorable 
to  these  people  than  to  use  one's  muscle  or  brain.  Just  to 
show  you  how  adverse  the  Indian  mind  is  to  making  any 
sort  of  effort,  I  can  tell  you  of  a  boy  in  one  of  our  orphanages 
who  put  a  strong  chemical  into  his  own  eyes,  to  injure  his 
eyesight,  that  he  might  not  be  made  to  study.  Now,  you 
may  think  that  we  force  our  boys  and  girls  to  go  to  school 
against  their  will.  We  do  urge  them  to  go  and  from  the  very 
fact  that  an  educated  person  can  command  four  to  ten  times 
the  salary  of  an  uneducated  person,  one  would  naturally 
think  that  all  our  young  people  would  be  anxious  to  get  an 
education.  But  such  is  not  the  case.  A  teacher  in  a 
primary  school,  being  himself  educated  up  to  a  grade  not 
much  higher  than  his  highest  class,  draws  three  to  four  dol- 
lars per  month.  A  teacher  in  a  middle  school,  being  him- 
self a  high  school  graduate,  gets  seven  to  ten  dollars  per 
month,  while  a  teacher  in  the  high  school,  being  a  college 
graduate,  receives  the  handsome  salary  of  twenty-five  to 
fifty  dollars,  according  to  his  years  of  experience.      A  head 

[44] 


master  (corresponding  to  our  principal)  receives  as  much  as 
one  hundred  dollars  per  month  if  he  is  a  man  of  experience 
as  well  as  normal  training.  But  even  then,  our  boys  and 
girls  have  very  little  ambition  to  go  on  as  far  as  they  can. 
As  missionaries  we  get  support  for  them,  so  that  it  costs 
them  nothing  but  their  own  effort,  but  still  they  find  it 
difficult  to  screw  up  enough  ambition  to  get  through  high 
school.  There  are  many  splendid  exceptions  to  this,  how- 
ever, and  it  is  because  of,  and  for  the  sake  of,  the  exceptions 
that  we  do  not  get  utterly  discouraged. 

Of  course  you  have  heard  of  the  bomb  outrages,  and  the 
arrests  and  trials  and  slaughter.  Most  of  the  troubles  have 
been  on  the  Calcutta  side,  but  some  arrests  have  been  made 
in  Bombay.  Editors  of  papers  in  the  Indian  languages 
have  been  arrested  for  publishing  seditious  articles.  The 
government  is  watching,  but  the  Indian  people  are  tricky. 

Tilak,  editor  of  Keshari  (newspaper  in  Marathi),  has 
been  arrested  on  the  charge  of  ''attempts  to  bring  into 
hatred  and  contempt,  or  excite  disaffection  toward,  His 
Majesty's  government, "  and  of  "promoting  or  attempting  to 
promote  feelings  of  enmity  or  hatred  between  different  classes 
of  His  Majesty's  subjects."  Mr.  Tilak  was  once  a  member 
of  the  governor  of  Bombay's  executive  council,  and  has 
once  before  been  imprisoned  for  sedition.  This  time  he  will 
get  a  long  sentence  —  seven  or  ten  years,  most  folks  think. 

He  is  looked  upon  as  a  god  by  the  Hindus,  and  if  he 
is  sent  to  prison  they  threaten  to  rise  up  and  kill  all  the 
white  folks  off.  The  case  will  be  tried  on  Monday,  July 
2oth,  and  we  have  been  warned  to  stay  strictly  indoors  on 
that  day,  as  there  are  sure  to  be  riots  around  town.  Our 
native  pastor  has  been  concerned  about  us.  Last  night  he 
asked  us  if  our  cook  was  a  Christian  or  a  Hindu.  He  is 
afraid  our  food  may  be  poisoned. 

India  can  never  be  a  nation  among  the  nations  of  the 
world,  or  at  least  will  not  be  for  many  years  to  come.  With 
twenty-nine  petty  kings  or  princes  now,  and  Parsees,  and 
Mohammedans,  and  Hindus,  and  all  races  and  colors  — 
how  could  there  be  one  government?  If  it  were  not  for  the 
English  residents  in  the  provinces  where  the  kings  think  they 

[45] 


are  supreme  —  but  everybody  knows  the  English  resident 
is  the  power  that  decides  all  matters  of  state  —  there  would 
be  continual  war  and  bloodshed  now,  twenty-nine  kings 
fighting  each  other  to  see  who  would  be  supreme.  The  last 
national  congress  at  Surat  shows  pretty  plainly  how  ready 
the  Indian  people  are  for  self-government:  they  failed  to 
be  able  to  elect  a  president,  so  the  congress  closed  with 
folks  throwing  chairs  and  shoes  at  each  other. 

Well,  we  are  not  afraid  —  we  are  in  God's  hands  and  we 
know  He  cannot  err.  But  there  is  no  danger,  of  course — no 
immediate  danger.  And  wiser  heads  than  ours  are  looking 
after  our  welfare.  We  are  longing  for  the  time  to  come  when 
India  shall  worship  the  one  true  God  and  cease  all  this  rest- 
lessness and  commotion.  Until  then  it  is  useless  to  dream 
of  unity  or  self-government. 

With  love  to  all  friends, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 

P.  S.  Mr.  Tilak's  trial  is  still  going  on,  and  troops  are 
tramping  through  the  streets  of  the  city  to  scare  the  people. 
A  half-dozen  regiments,  both  cavalry  and  infantry,  arrived 
the  morning  the  trial  began,  and  the  chief  commissioner  of 
police  issued  an  order  that  no  procession  or  assembly  of  the 
people  would  be  allowed  anywhere  in  the  city  limits — not 
even  a  funeral  procession,  as  that  might  be  a  scheme  to  get 
the  crowd  together. 

As  for  the  trial  itself,  the  accused  is  pleading  his  own 
case,  examining  the  witnesses  and  all  that.  The  last  three 
days  he  has  been  addressing  the  jury.  His  main  argument 
is  that  these  seditious  articles  that  he  has  published  were  not 
meant  to  be  seditious,  and  now  it  is  a  mere  matter  of  what 
he  did  mean.  You  see,  the  articles  were  published  in  Marathi. 
So  he  is  wriggling  around  the  different  words  he  used  and 
what  meanings  he  attaches  to  them,  and  we  are  thinking 
that  he  will  slip  through  their  fingers  and  go  free,  after  all, 
though  they  know  he  is  as  wily  a  fellow  as  one  would  find 
anywhere.  Ella  Conrad  Scholberg. 


[46] 


Bombay,  India,  July  24,  1908. 
Dear  Friends: 

Well,  the  trial  is  over  at  last.  Mr.  Bal  Gangadhar  Tilak 
has  been  sentenced  to  six  years'  transportation  and  fined  a 
thousand  rupees  (about  $335.00).  He  conducted  his  own 
defense  and  gave  an  address  to  the  jury  five  days  long.  In 
it,  he  made  all  sorts  of  corrections  to  the  translations  of  his 
articles  (for  they  were  written  in  Marathi)  and  he  went  into 
political  questions  of  the  day  as  if  he  were  giving  a  series  of 
lectures  on  that  subject. 

But  the  Advocate-General  (for  the  Crown)  made  his 
statement  to  the  jury  in  about  three  hours.  He  said  that 
the  articles  had  the  effect  of  exciting  dissatisfaction  with 
His  Majesty's  government,  and  that  meant  sedition.  Mr. 
Tilak  is  a  scholar  in  Marathi,  but  the  people  who  read  his 
paper  are  not  scholars  and  their  interpretation  of  the  articles 
is  the  important  thing,  not  what  the  writer  had  in  mind  when 
he  wrote  them,  or  what  he  meant  when  he  wrote  them.  The 
judge  in  passing  sentence  said:  ''Ten  years  ago  you  were 
convicted  of  a  similar  charge.  The  Court  dealt  most 
leniently  with  you.  After  you  had  undergone  your  simple 
imprisonment  for  a  year  and  a  half,  it  was  remitted  on 
conditions  which  you  accepted.  It  seems  to  me  it  must  be 
a  diseased,  a  most  perverted,  mind  that  can  think  that  the 
articles  you  have  written  are  legitimate  articles  in  political 
agitation.  They  preach  violence.  They  speak  of  murders 
with  approval,  and  that  cowardly  and  atrocious  act  of  com- 
mitting murders  by  bomb  not  only  seems  to  meet  with 
approval,  but  you  hail  the  advent  of  bombs  in  India  as  if 
something  had  come  to  this  country  for  its  good." 

Immediately  at  10  o'clock  p.  m.,  when  the  sentence  was 
pronounced,  Mr.  Tilak  was  taken  in  a  closed  motor  to  one  of 
the  suburbs  of  Bombay,  where  he  was  put  on  a  special  train 
and  taken  up  the  west  coast.  No  one  seems  to  know  where 
they  have  taken  him,  and  no  one  is  supposed  to  know  except 
those  whose  business  it  is.     A  crowd  surrounded  the  High 

[47] 


Court  until  12  midnight,  thinking  they  might  secure  the 
prisoner  by  force  and  release  him.  As  soon  as  the  news  got 
abroad  the  next  day,  the  natives  closed  their  shops,  stayed 
home  from  the  mills  and  factories,  and  collected  in  mobs  all 
day.  A  company  of  Southamptons  had  to  fire  on  a  crowd  the 
other  day  because  they  would  not  disperse,  and  several  were 
killed.  And  to-day  three  armed  policemen  ordered  a  mob 
to  scatter  and  they  refused  and  the  police  fired.  But  the 
company  pressed  upon  them  until  the  three  men  had  to 
retreat  to  a  fire  brigade  station,  where  they  phoned  for  a 
company  of  the  Royal  Scots.  There  was  some  shooting  then, 
and  a  long  list  of  casualties  in  to-night's  paper. 

The  people  don't  know  what  they  want  —  they  are  too 
ignorant  to  know.  If  you  should  ask  a  mill  hand  why  he 
will  not  go  to  work,  he  will  say  that  some  one  told  him  not 
to.  They  believe  Mr.  Tilak  to  be  a  great  man  —  a  god  in 
fact  —  but  they  don't  know  why.  As  he  is  an  old  man  and 
an  invalid,  it  is  not  likely  he  will  outlive  his  sentence.  But 
it  is  such  a  pity  that  a  man  with  such  an  intellect  and  such 
powers  could  not  have  spent  his  life  in  doing  some  real  good 
for  the  country  he  professes  to  love. 

Sincerely  yours, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


[48] 


Bombay,  India,  November  i8,  1908. 
Dear  Home  Friends: 

I  wish  I  knew  just  how  much  you  hear  of  our  affairs  and 
how  much  you  would  have  me  report  to  you.  I  wonder  if 
you  have  all  heard  about  the  attack  on  Sir  Andrew  Fraser, 
Lieutenant-Governor  of  Bengal,  so  that  my  telling  the  story 
would  be  of  no  interest  to  you? 

I  think  that  I  will  begin  at  the  beginning  of  the  struggle 
between  the  English  and  India  so  that  you  will  see  just  how 
matters  stand.  As  India  has  not  much  of  a  written  history 
the  past  is  very  vague,  but  we  do  know  that  always  since  the 
beginning  of  time  a  class  of  people  who  call  themselves 
Brahmins  ruled  the  lower  class  of  people  with  the  utmost 
tyranny.  So  that  when  the  English  came  and  began  lifting 
the  poorer  classes  and  gave  them  a  chance  to  work  and  to 
live,  and  brought  in  machinery  and  taught  the  poor  how  to 
use  it,  much  of  the  profit  of  manufacturing  and  trade  went 
into  the  English  coffers  instead  of  the  pockets  of  the  Brah- 
mins. This,  of  course,  made  them  very  antagonistic  to 
English  rule,  and  the  Sepoy  Mutiny  of  '57  was  the  first 
attempt  on  the  part  of  the  Indians  to  exterminate  the 
English.  It  was  cruel  in  the  extreme,  for  no  people  in  the 
world  can  be  more  cruel  than  the  Indians.  But  it  taught 
two  great  lessons  —  it  taught  the  Indians  how  strong  and 
powerful  the  English  government  is,  and  it  taught  the 
English  how  treacherous  and  deceitful  the  Indian  people 
are.  Because  it  was  planned  that  the  mutiny  should  begin 
on  a  Sunday  morning  when  all  English  people  would  be  at 
church  and  unguarded,  even  to  this  day  all  the  English 
troops  carry  their  bayonets  to  church  every  Sunday  morn- 
ing. Not  a  native  can  get  hold  of  a  firearm  these  days. 
The  few  places  where  firearms  are  sold  are  under  the  strictest 
poHce  supervision.  Last  July,  when  the  riots  were  in  Bom- 
bay, Mr.  Scholberg  was  thinking  of  getting  a  revolver  to 
carry  for  self-protection,  but  if  he  had  bought  one  he  would 
have  had  to  proceed  in  this  manner:  He  would  have  gone  to 

[49] 


the  store  and  given  his  name  and  address.  They  would  have 
sent  an  agent  up  to  see  what  kind  of  a  life  we  were  living 
(whether  we  would  be  apt  to  sell  it  again  to  a  native — whether 
we  are  loyal  subjects  of  His  Majesty  or  not).  The  matter 
then  would  come  before  the  authorities  and  perhaps  they 
would  have  allowed  us  to  purchase  a  revolver.  But  our 
name  and  address  would  remain  on  their  books. 

There  are  native  troops  in  this  land  —  of  course,  sub- 
ordinate to  the  English  army  —  but  they  use  bogus  guns  all 
the  time  except  when  real  guns  are  necessary  and  then  these 
real  guns  have  to  be  surrendered  just  the  minute  the  soldiers 
return  to  the  barracks.  Not  a  man  is  allowed  to  keep  his 
gun  with  him.  At  the  time  of  the  riots  a  native  regiment 
happened  to  be  in  Bombay  and  they  were  all  packed  up  and 
sent  way  off  before  the  riots  began.  They  did  not  have  one 
gun  with  them,  but  the  police  feared  a  little  uprising  among 
them,  so  they  ordered  them  sent  off  out  of  the  city. 

Just  lately  one  night,  as  two  ladies  were  driving  home 
from  the  theater,  a  bomb  was  thrown  into  their  carriage, 
killing  the  daughter  outright  and  the  mother  dying  the  next 
day,  and  one  wonders  where  the  material  was  obtained  from 
which  the  bomb  was  made. 

One  of  the  murderers  was  caught  and  confessed,  and 
another  was  captured  but  instantly  shot  himself  rather  than 
be  turned  over  to  the  authorities.  One  of  the  accomplices 
confessed  to  his  part  in  it  and  turned  king's  evidence  and 
told  on  all  the  rest  of  the  murderous  gang. 

Well,  these  two  women  were  Mrs.  and  Miss  Kennedy, 
prominent  in  social  circles,  but  were  not  the  intended  victims. 
These  Bengali  youths  were  on  the  path  of  a  Mr.  Kingsford, 
a  government  official,  whose  carriage  was  just  behind  that 
of  Mrs.  and  Miss  Kennedy  and  he  escaped  unharmed. 

Then  the  awful  bomb  factory  in  Harrison  Park,  Calcutta, 
was  discovered  and  it  was  found  out  where  the  explosives 
were  obtained.  Just  at  that  time  some  daring  newspaper 
men  got  themselves  into  trouble  by  airing  their  seditious 
ideas;  and  now  and  then  we  read  of  some  new  man  being 
arrested  for  publishing  seditious  articles. 

[SO] 


Now,  the  murderers  of  Mrs.  and  Miss  Kennedy  were  put 
in  the  jail  at  Alipur  to  await  trial.  This  one  who  had  turned 
king's  evidence  was  there  too.  His  name  is  Gossain. 
Suddenly  he  was  murdered  in  prison  by  a  crowd  of  those  on 
whom  he  had  told.  One  of  the  murderers  was  Bose,  who 
after  the  trial  was  sentenced  to  die,  and  because  Sir  Andrew 
Fraser  would  not  commute  his  death  penalty,  a  close  relative 
of  Bose's  attempted  the  life  of  Sir  Andrew  Fraser  last  week. 
When  they  asked  him  if  he  had  any  statement  to  make  in 
explanation  of  his  rash  deed,  he  said,  "Some  one  in  the  hall 
put  the  pistol  in  my  hand,  and  pushed  me  in  front  of  the 
Lieutenant-Governor."  The  next  day  he  in  prison  wanted 
to  go  and  beg  the  Governor's  pardon.  But  from  all  sur- 
rounding circumstances  it  seems  to  have  been  deliberately 
planned. 

The  Lieutenant-Governor  had  just  arrived  at  Overtown 
Hall,  Calcutta,  on  the  night  of  the  yth  of  November,  when 
Professor  Burton  of  Chicago  University  was  to  deliver  a 
lecture.  Professor  Burton  had  not  yet  arrived.  The 
Lieutenant-Governor  was  accompanied  by  a  native  prince 
and  several  officials.  Mr.  Barber,  the  Calcutta  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association  secretary,  met  him  in  the  hall 
and  suggested  that  he  sit  on  the  platform  until  the  arrival  of 
Professor  Burton.  Sir  A.  Fraser  was  to  preside  at  the  affair. 
Just  at  that  juncture  this  Coundbury  rushed  up  with  a  five- 
chambered  pistol,  all  loaded,  and  fired  once  at  Sir  Andrew, 
but  for  some  unexplainable  reason  the  weapon  missed  fire. 
The  native  prince  who  was  standing  just  behind  Sir  Andrew 
jumped  in  front  of  him  and  pushed  him  into  an  adjoining 
room.  For  this  act  of  courage  and  loyalty  he  is  lauded  to 
the  skies  and  is  given  a  new  title.  But  Mr.  Barber,  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  secretary,  sprang  upon 
the  would-be  assassin  and  got  his  pistol  before  he  had  time 
to  fire  another  shot.  He  got  several  bad  wounds  and  as  a 
reward  for  his  bravery  will  certainly  be  given  a  medal  by  the 
King. 

But  the  puzzle  is,  where  did  the  man  get  this  gun,  and 
how  many  other  men  roaming  around  this  land  have  guns? 

[51] 


They  are  all  getting  busy  now  to  pass  a  stiffer  Crimes  Act, 
but  I  hope  they  will  keep  busy  and  find  all  the  traitors. 
England  realizes  that  these  people  are  hard  to  manage  and  I 
suppose  she  is  doing  the  best  she  can. 

I  see  by  to-night's  paper  that  the  Bengal  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  the  Calcutta  Trades  Association  and  the  Anglo- 
Indian  Defense  Association  are  waiting  upon  the  Viceroy's 
private  secretary,  asking  that  the  establishment  of  a  special 
tribunal  of  High  Court  judges,  to  deal  with  anarchistic 
offenses,  may  have  immediate  viceregal  attention.  So 
something  will  come  to  pass,  no  doubt. 

To-morrow  at  six  A.  m.  this  man  Bose  is  to  be  hanged  in 
the  jail  compound  and  the  body  will  then  be  turned  over  to  a 
very  limited  number  of  his  nearest  relatives  who  will  be 
allowed  to  burn  the  body  by  Hindu  rites,  but  it  must  be 
done  inside  the  jail  compound.  Of  course,  there  will  be 
universal  mourning  by  all  the  Hindus  in  Calcutta  and  he 
will  be  honored  as  a  great  hero  of  his  country,  but  there  will 
also  be  a  few  policemen  around  and  I  expect  some  of  the 
military.  The  last  time  one  of  these  wretches  was  hanged, 
the  body  was  turned  over  to  the  Hindu  relatives  who  carried 
it  off  proudly  and  burned  it  with  the  greatest  celebration. 
All  the  countryside  were  there  and  rejoiced  over  the  body  of 
one  who  in  our  eyes  had  been  guilty  of  one  of  the  foulest 
crimes  in  the  universe,  but  who  in  their  eyes  had  served  his 
mother  country  so  well  that  he  was  worthy  to  be  made  one 
of  the  constellations.  And  they  made  such  a  hero  of  him 
that  the  government  decided  to  have  the  next  affair  more 
quiet. 

One  should  live  in  this  land  twenty  years  before  expressing 
one's  ideas  on  any  of  the  problems  here,  and  I  hope  that  no 
one  has  an  idea  that  we  know  what  we  are  talking  about, 
when  we  have  lived  here  only  two  years,  but  I  do  say  (and 
I  think  I  shall  still  say  it  when  I'm  sixty  years  old)  that  what 
India  needs  is  the  gospel  of  the  Prince  of  Peace. 

If  these  high  government  officials  would  live  lives  becom- 
ing Christian  gentlemen  from  Christian  lands,  if  all  repre- 
sentatives of  the  government,  high  and  low,  would  live  such 

[52] 


lives,  I  do  not  believe  it  would  take  the  Indian  mind  long  to 
grasp  the  fact  that  though  we  are  introducing  new  machinery 
and  new  ideas  to  break  down  their  old  machinery  and  their 
old  ideas,  we  are  giving  them  something  a  thousand  times 
better.  They  dread  giving  up  their  old  customs  —  and 
who  would  not?  And  most  of  the  representatives  of  Chris- 
tianity they  see  out  here  make  the  Christian  religion  seem 
anything  but  attractive. 

But  I'm  sure  I've  aired  my  views  long  enough,  so  I  will 

Cordially  yours, 

Ella  Scholberg. 


[53] 


Bombay,  India,  February  13,  1909. 
Dear  Friends  in  the  Homeland: 

We  appreciate  the  fact  that  we  are  in  British  territory. 
Our  lives  are  not  in  danger  so  long  as  the  British  soldier  stays 
in  this  land.  We  enjoy  street  cars,  telephones,  and  a  fine 
railway  system,  and  many  other  things  England  has  brought 
to  this  country.  And  the  English  government  acts  like 
Carnegie  to  us  in  giving  us  money  for  schools.  If  we  put  a 
thousand  dollars  into  a  school  building,  government  gives  us 
another  thousand.  In  that  way  all  the  money  sent  from 
America  for  school  purposes  is  exactly  doubled  over  here. 
And  every  year  they  give  us  a  grant-in-aid  toward  the  run- 
ning expenses  of  the  school.  It  is  two  rupees  (sixty  cents) 
for  every  boy  and  four  rupees  for  every  girl,  on  the  average 
attendance  during  the  year.  It  is  no  more  than  fair,  of 
course,  since  we  do  so  much  to  uplift  these  people  and  make 
them  worthy  of  British  citizenship.  But  of  course  there 
are  a  few  things  about  the  English  people  that  we  do  not 
like,  especially  those  of  us  who  were  brought  up  in  the  West 
where  there  are  no  caste  distinctions.  When  a  company  of 
soldiers  lands,  the  steamer's  passenger  list  is  given  with  so 
many  ladies  and  so  many  women.  A  lady  is  the  wife  of  an 
ofl&cer  in  a  regiment,  a  woman  is  the  wife  of  a  private.  But 
the  idea  is  just  the  same  as  the  Hindu  idea  of  caste,  where  one 
cannot  rise  above  the  caste  in  which  he  happens  to  be  born. 
In  the  college  where  we  happened  to  be  educated  the  young 
man  who  had  to  sell  papers  on  the  street  to  pay  his  way 
through  college  was  considered  just  as  clever  and  just  as  good 
as  the  young  man  whose  father  had  money,  and  the  young 
girl  who  waited  on  tables  to  meet  her  expenses  was  just 
as  popular  and  received  just  as  many  privileges  as  the  girl 
who  had  plenty  of  money.  It  is  not  so  here,  of  course.  In 
fact,  a  girl  or  boy  who  does  not  have  money  cannot  get  an 
education.  So  we  are  proud  of  our  country  and  especially 
the  western  part.  I  suppose  it  is  the  only  place  on  this  old 
globe  of  ours  where  there  is  absolutely  no  caste.     But  I  am 

[54] 


afraid  that  I  am  stepping  on  disputable  ground,  so  I  will 
change  the  subject. 

The  clouds  of  trouble  and  sedition  have  not  cleared  away 
yet,  and  our  daily  papers  are  full  of  court  cases  and  judges' 
decisions.  Every  now  and  then  a  bomb  is  thrown  into  a 
train  and  injures  a  number  of  people,  but  seldom  kills  the 
man  it  is  intended  for.  Just  the  other  day,  in  Bengal,  an 
attorney  was  shot  dead  by  one  of  these  seditionists.  Intelli- 
gent Indian  people  are  horrified  by  these  dastardly  deeds  of 
the  ignorant,  but  England  may  always  have  this  spirit  to 
deal  with.  There  are  always  some  folks  who  are  out-of-sorts, 
in  every  land.  Government  feared  a  general  outbreak  in 
Bombay  at  the  time  of  the  great  Mohammedan  festival  this 
month,  but  there  is  none  on  this  side,  though  there  were  local 
troubles  here  and  there  all  over  India  between  Mohammedans 
and  Hindus.  On  a  Sunday  of  the  great  week  crowds  were 
passing  our  church,  beating  their  drums  and  making  all  sorts 
of  wild  noises,  and  Mr.  Scholberg  went  to  the  door  and  simply 
raised  his  hand  in  protest.  That  was  all  that  was  necessary, 
for  it  is  a  law  that  no  unnecessary  noise  should  be  made 
by  anyone  passing  in  front  of  a  church,  temple,  or  mosque. 
If  a  tram  car  passes  a  place  of  worship  it  must  go  more 
slowly,  and  a  carriage  driver  has  to  pull  his  horses  down  to  a 
walk.  It  is  one  of  the  written  laws  of  India.  But  in  passing 
Hindu  temples  Mohammedans  are  not  always  willing  to  stop 
their  noises,  and  that  is  where  trouble  comes. 

Sincerely  yours, 

Ella  Scholberg. 


[55] 


LETTER    FROM    KASHMIR 

May  II,  1909. 
Dear  Home  Friends: 

We  are  spending  our  vacation  this  year  in  the  place  of 
which  Tom  Moore  wrote: 

Who  has  not  heard  of  the  Vale  of  Kashmir, 
With  its  roses  the  brightest  that  earth  ever  gave, 
Its  temples,  and  grottos,  and  fountains  as  clear 
As  the  love-lighted  eyes  that  hang  over  their  wave? 
When  the  East  is  as  warm  as  the  light  of  first  hopes, 
And  Day,  with  his  banner  of  radiance  unfurled, 
Shines  in  through  the  mountainous  portal  that  opes, 
SubHme,  from  that  Valley  of  BHss  to  the  world! 

This  is,  I  suppose,  one  of  the  ideal  places  to  spend  one's 
vacation,  but  Tom  Moore  wisely  does  not  say  much  about 
the  Kashmiri  —  the  native  of  Kashmir.  I  will  tell  you  right 
now  that  he  is  a  rascal.  We  ought  to  be  well  enough  ac- 
quainted with  rascality,  having  lived  in  India  more  than  two 
years,  but  we  find  even  more  of  it  here.  For  nearly  a  month 
we  were  blissfully  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  every  letter  we 
tried  to  send  had  its  stamp  taken  off  and  never  reached  the 
post  office.  Now  we  mail  our  letters  ourselves.  The  people 
up  here  are  Mohammedans  mostly  —  there  are  some  Hindus 
—  and  they  were  made  Mohammedans  at  the  point  of  the 
sword.  They  have  a  belief  that  everything  we  touch  is 
polluted  and  they  cannot  eat  it,  but  we  often  catch  them 
stealing  our  bread  and  butter.  It  would  seem  strange  to  a 
housewife  in  America  to  lock  up  her  tea,  sugar,  flour,  eggs, 
and  even  her  matches,  and  dole  them  out  to  her  servant  as  she 
needs,  but  Kashmir  needs  a  lock  and  key  much  more  than 
India  ever  did.  As  an  Oriental  servant  eats  food  prepared  in 
a  different  way  from  his  master,  we  pay  them  their  salary 
and  they  find  their  own  food.  I  do  not  object  to  a  servant 
taking  enough  of  my  provisions  for  his  own  use,  or  even  for 
that  of  his  family,  but  when  he  makes  a  merchant  of  himself 

[56] 


and  sells  my  provisions  to  his  friends,  then  I  have  to  get  out 
a  padlock.  Matches  are  not  expensive,  but  it  would  cost 
something  to  keep  these  people  and  all  their  relatives  and 
friends  in  matches,  for  they  are  terrible  smokers. 

But  Kashmir  itself  is  just  as  Moore  has  pictured  it  — 
you  must  read  the  Light  of  the  Harem  —  or  all  of  Lalla 
Rookh  —  in  order  to  fully  appreciate  it.  We  live  in  a  house- 
boat and  move  around  from  lake  to  lake.  It  is  wonderfully 
pleasant  down  here  in  the  Vale,  but  we  are  always  in  sight  of 
the  snow-topped  Himalayas.  Mr.  Scholberg  has  climbed 
some  of  the  lower  peaks  and  tramped  on  snow  to  his  heart's 
content.  Not  having  seen  snow  since  we  left  America,  it 
made  us  feel  like  escaped  lunatics  when  we  did  see  it.  For 
the  first  time  in  her  little  life,  Miriam  has  roses  in  her  cheeks 
—  such  beautiful  roses  that  it  has  been  worth  going  a  long 
way  to  obtain  them. 

This  place  is  especially  interesting  to  those  who  Hke  to 
rummage  among  things  of  the  past.  The  gardens  and 
shrines,  which  are  not  much  more  than  ruins  now,  are  still 
illustrative  of  the  great  love  of  nature's  beauties  the  Mogul 
emperors  must  have  possessed.  This  was  their  great  sum- 
mer resort,  but  the  mountain  road  that  leads  us  to  this 
place  from  the  railroad  at  Rowal  Pindi  was  not  then  built, 
and  they  had  to  travel  on  the  backs  of  their  state  elephants. 
The  present  road,  which  was  opened  in  '88  or  '90  by  the  king 
of  Kashmir,  is  perhaps  the  finest  example  of  mountain  roads 
in  the  world. 

The  government  here  is  a  kingdom  like  many  of  the 
petty  kingdoms  of  India.  The  king  is  only  so  in  name;  he 
can  do  nothing  without  the  English  resident  who  follows 
him  around  wherever  he  goes.  He  spends  his  spring  and 
fall  in  Shrinagar,  the  capital  and  largest  city  of  Kashmir.  In 
the  summer  he  goes  to  Gulmarg  in  the  mountains,  and  in  the 
winter  he  goes  to  Jummo  on  the  railroad  next  door  to  India. 
He  can  do  nothing  without  consulting  the  Resident,  so, 
although  he  is  a  Hindu,  the  Mohammedan  community  has 
equal  rights  and  privileges.  When  one  day  there  comes  to 
the  throne  a  weaker  king  who  does  not  do  as  the  Resident 

[57] 


orders,  English  power  will  make  it  more  of  an  English 
colony,  and  by  and  by  it  will  belong  entirely  to  England. 

The  cloth  made  in  this  country  took  the  name  of  the 
country,  only  it  is  spelled  cashmere, — just  as  calico  got  its 
name  from  Cailicut,  where  it  was  first  made,  but  where  now 
it  is  an  extinct  industry. 

When  we  go  home  it  will  be  to  Kamptee  (pronounced 
camp- tea  with  the  accent  on  the  tea),  for  Mr.  Scholberg  has 
been  transferred  there.  Kamptee  contains  a  large  military 
cantonment,  and  Mr.  Scholberg  is  to  be  chaplain  of  the 
Non-conformists  —  those  who  do  not  worship  in  the  Church 
of  England.  Part  of  our  salary  will  come  from  the  English 
Government,  as  a  certain  amount  is  allowed  for  every  chap- 
laincy. But  he  will  be  free  to  devote  most  of  his  time  to  the 
native  work  and  it  will  be  in  the  same  language  as  learned  in 
Bombay.  Much  as  the  British  soldier  needs  our  help, 
our  hearts  are  still  with  the  people  of  India. 

I  will  tell  you  more  of  Kamptee  in  another  letter. 

Sincerely  yours, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


58] 


Kamptee,  C.  P.,  India,  August  13,  1909. 
Dear  Friends  in  the  Homeland: 

Once  upon  a  time,  in  the  year  1898,  a  young  girl  was 
graduating  from  Hutchinson  High  School  and  this  prophecy 
was  written  of  her:  that  one  day  she  would  be  sitting  under  a 
palm  tree,  teaching  a  crowd  of  dirty,  black-faced  little 
children,  in  India.  This  morning  the  prophecy  was  fulfilled, 
for  we  had  an  open  air  Sunday  school  in  a  little  village  about 
a  mile  from  the  bungalow.  It  was  not  a  palm  tree,  but  a 
banyan  with  its  magnificent  shade.  The  trunk  was  over 
twenty  feet  in  circumference,  and  the  parts  of  the  roots 
above  ground  with  all  their  tangles  and  intertwines,  furnished 
us  as  comfortable  a  place  to  sit  as  cane  chairs.  On  the  other 
side  of  the  tree,  but  quite  hid  by  the  huge  trunk,  was  a 
Hindu  worshiping  place  with  its  red  painted  stones  and  evil 
significations.  But  the  girl  of  the  graduating  class  could  not 
teach,  because  she  could  not  talk  freely  in  the  language  of 
these  interesting  people  who  were  gathered  about  and  sitting 
on  the  ground,  so  the  Bible  women  had  to  do  most  of  the 
teaching.  Our  mission  owns  a  number  of  school  and  church 
buildings  in  and  about  Kamptee,  but  where  we  have 
no  building,  a  friendly  tree  always  gives  us  shelter  from 
the  hot  sun. 

This  is  supposed  to  be  one  of  the  very  hot  places  on  this 
old  globe  of  ours,  but  we  have  not  found  it  so  as  yet.  It 
rained  some  in  July,  and  still  rains  off  and  on,  but  they  tell 
us  that  from  March  to  June  it  is  unmercifully  hot.  A  mis- 
sionary here  years  ago  was  driving  with  a  companion  from 
one  station  to  another,  and  they  were  both  suffering  on 
account  of  the  intense  heat.  Suddenly  one  turned  to  his 
companion  and  said,  "Will,  spit  on  me  and  see  if  I'll  sizzle." 

We  have  been  very  busy  since  landing  here,  three  weeks 
ago,  in  getting  acquainted  with  the  work.  I  have  a  family  of 
eleven  orphan  boys  on  the  compound  to  look  after.  The 
boys  eat  a  coarse  bread  with  curry  for  breakfast  at  10  a.m. 
and  curry  and  rice  for  dinner  at  6  p.m.,  when  they  return 

[59] 


from  school.  They  do  not  possess  elaborate  wardrobes,  and 
the  wages  of  a  tailor  is  $4.00  a  month.  One  woman  cooks 
all  their  food,  and  another  grinds  the  hajeri  (a  coarse  grain) 
for  their  bread,  and  each  receives  $1.25  per  month.  The 
boys  sleep  on  a  bit  of  matting  on  the  stone  floor  of  their 
dormitory,  and  they  do  not  have  sheets  and  pillows.  In 
the  morning  they  roll  up  their  bed,  put  it  in  a  corner,  and  use 
their  bedroom  for  a  study  room.  Now,  do  not  pity  my  poor 
orphans.  They  have  better  food  and  better  clothes  and  a 
far  better  place  to  live  than  their  ancestors  ever  had.  When 
their  school  days  are  over,  they  will  go  back  to  their  villages, 
and  not  be  too  grand  to  associate  with  their  fellow  creatures. 
How  fruitless  would  be  all  our  efforts  in  this  land  if  we  raised 
up  the  boys  to  so  high  a  plane  that  they  in  their  turn  could 
not  reach  down  to  their  fellow-creatures  and  lift  them  up ! 

We  have  a  thriving  boys'  day  school  of  about  one  hundred 
boys  in  Kamptee,  and  other  schools  in  the  villages  around 
about.  I  have  a  girls'  school  of  thirty  girls,  with  two 
teachers.  It  is  more  difficult  to  get  the  parents  interested 
in  the  education  of  their  daughters,  and  besides  they  get 
married  so  young  and  have  to  stop  school.  We  keep  our 
school  under  government  inspection,  not  only  for  the  grant- 
in-aid  they  give  us,  but  to  keep  our  teachers  up  to  the  mark. 
Every  teacher  likes  to  come  up  to  the  requirements  of  the 
Government  Educational  Code.  Primary,  middle  school, 
and  high  school  are  the  divisions  here,  and  at  the  end  is  the 
Matriculation.  A  matriculate  is  ready  to  enter  college  in 
England  or  Canada,  but  has  a  year  more  of  high  school 
work  before  he  is  able  to  enter  college  in  United  States. 
There  are  colleges  here,  and  they  give  B.  A.  and  Sc.  B.  and 
M.  A.,  but  there  are  no  universities.  For  law,  medicine, 
or  engineering  degrees,  the  student  must  go  out  of  India. 
The  colleges  are  called  universities  but  are  not  universities 
in  the  way  we  understand  the  word. 

Kamptee  is  a  military  center  and  has  a  large  cantonment. 
A  British  regiment  is  stationed  here  now,  the  ist  Manchester, 
and  a  native  regiment,  the  117th  Marathas.  A  Maratha  is 
a  brave,  stalwart  man,  and  makes  a  fine  soldier  for  His 

[60] 


Majesty,  King  Edward.  The  British  army  is  composed  of 
men  of  the  Church  of  England,  Roman  Catholics,  Jews,  and 
Non-conformists.  As  we  are  the  only  mission  at  work  in 
Kamptee,  Mr.  Scholberg  is  chaplain  to  these  Non-conformist 
soldiers.  Every  Sunday  morning  all  the  soldiers  of  the  regi- 
ment must  go  to  some  religious  service  and  carry  their  guns. 
You  know  the  mutiny  began  on  a  Sunday  morning  when  the 
soldiers  were  at  church  unarmed,  so  now  they  must  take 
their  guns;  they  have  what  they  call  the  parade  service,  and 
at  the  close  they  stand  attention  and  sing,  "God  Save  the 
King."  In  the  barracks,  the  British  "Tommy,"  as  he  is 
called,  has  rather  a  dull  time  of  it,  so  there  has  been  organized 
a  guild  under  the  leadership  of  an  industrious  layman  of  the 
place,  and  we  have  a  tea  room,  reading  room,  and  rest  room. 
We  are  planning  a  ghost  party  on  Hallowe'en  and  will  have 
the  whole  compound  filled  with  ghosts.  Of  course  the  guests 
will  not  bring  their  guns.  Missionaries  usually  gather  to 
celebrate  Fourth  of  July  and  Hallowe'en,  but  as  we  are  the 
only  Americans  in  this  station,  we  will  invite  the  soldiers  to 
help  us  celebrate  Hallowe'en  this  year,  in  the  good  old  Ameri- 
can fashion.     It  will  be  something  new  to  them. 

English  people  who  come  out  in  governmental,  military, 
or  ecclesiastical  service  are  great  on  sports.  They  have 
tennis,  golf,  polo,  cricket,  and  a  sort  of  football  that  would 
put  an  American  to  sleep.  Besides  these,  are  the  horse  races 
with  their  gambling,  which  is  really  the  chief  sport  of  the 
season.  Wherever  there  are  English  people  at  all,  there  is  a 
club.  We  have  been  advised  to  join  the  Kamptee  Club, 
but  as  yet  have  not  done  so ! ! !  We  have  a  fine  tennis  court 
in  our  own  compound,  and  although  we  do  not  have  so  much 
time  for  play  as  other  people,  we  do  force  ourselves  to  take 
some.  Mr.  Scholberg  has  a  new  rifle,  and  all  the  mission- 
aries are  planning  some  great  hunting  trips  this  season. 

Very  cordially  yours, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


[61 


Narsinghpur,  C.  P.,  India,  February  4,  1910. 
Dear  Home  Friends: 

Of  course  we  knew  when  we  joined  the  Methodist  Itiner- 
acy that  we  would  be  called  upon  most  any  hour  to  change 
our  abode,  but  we  have  suffered  more  moving  since  we  have 
been  in  the  mission  field  than  most  folks.  This  last  time  it 
is  Narsinghpur  —  a  city  of  ten  thousand  inhabitants,  situated 
on  one  of  the  trunk  lines  between  Bombay  and  Calcutta, 
about  half  way  between,  I  should  say.  The  deputy  com- 
missioner of  the  district,  a  young  bachelor  Englishman, 
drawing  a  salary  of  $500.00  a  month,  lives  here;  and  a  civil 
surgeon,  who  has  charge  of  the  small  government  hospital, 
and  a  police  superintendent,  and  a  headquarters  inspector 
of  police  make  up  the  rest  of  the  white  population.  We  can- 
not get  a  loaf  of  bread  or  an  ounce  of  butter  made  in  Nar- 
singhpur. We  send  for  tinned  butter  to  Jabalpur,  and  we 
have  to  teach  our  cook  to  make  bread.  Only  seldom  can  we 
get  anything  but  goat  meat  in  the  market,  so  when  Mr. 
Scholberg  does  not  have  time  to  go  out  and  get  a  deer  we 
content  ourselves  with  chicken  we  raise  on  our  own  com- 
pound, or  with  fish  caught  in  the  river.  Tinned  meats, 
ham,  and  bacon  can  always  be  obtained  by  sending  to  Bom- 
bay, but  a  duty  has  to  be  paid  on  all  articles  brought  into 
Central  Provinces.  If  we  did  not  have  a  mission  garden  we 
would  not  be  able  to  have  English  vegetables  or  fruits. 
Some  of  the  India  vegetables  are  as  good  as  one  can  get 
in  the  market,  but  there  are  so  few  varieties  that  we  soon 
tire  of  them.  The  gardener  has  learned  to  cultivate  and 
raise  sweet  corn,  cabbage,  cauliflower,  beets,  carrots,  onions, 
lettuce,  turnips,  and  tomatoes,  and  we  have  a  nice  orchard 
of  orange  and  banana  trees,  figs,  custard  apples,  pomegran- 
ates, papayas,  pomeloes,  wood  apples,  and  guavas.  So  you 
see  we  are  not  apt  to  starve,  even  if  this  is  a  jungle. 

Now,  among  these  ten  thousand  people  there  is  no  mission 
at  work  except  the  Methodist.  The  missionaries  here, 
Rev.  and  Mrs.  D,   G.  Abbott  of  Mount  Pleasant,  Iowa, 

[62] 


were  in  urgent  need  of  furlough,  and  this  is  too  important 
a  station  to  leave  without  a  missionary.  The  work  at 
Kamptee  has  to  be  practically  closed,  but  there  seemed  to 
be  no  other  way. 

Government  has  a  primary  and  middle  school  here, 
where  about  one  hundred  boys  are  educated,  but  our  Hard- 
wicke  Christian  High  School  and  Orphanage  is  educating 
nearly  four  hundred  boys  of  all  ages  and  sizes.  One  hundred 
and  fifty  boys  are  orphans  and  are  dependent  upon  the  mis- 
sion for  their  food,  clothes,  and  all  their  earthly  goods.  We 
have  a  church,  hospital,  and  government-licensed  compounder 
or  apothecary,  a  work-shop  where  blacksmithing,  carpentry, 
and  shoemaking  are  taught,  a  garden  and  farm.  In  the  city 
and  the  villages  around  about,  a  dozen  preachers  and  Bible 
women  are  at  work.  It  costs  the  mission  about  five  hundred 
dollars  a  month  to  keep  all  this  work  going,  and  it  takes  all 
our  time  (and  more  if  we  had  it)  to  see  that  everything  moves. 
So  far  Mr.  Scholberg  has  devoted  much  of  his  time  to  teach- 
ing in  the  high  school,  but  my  time  is  largely  taken  up  in 
looking  after  my  large  family.  Twenty-five  of  the  boys  are 
under  six  years  of  age,  and  live  in  the  nursery  right  here  on 
our  compound.  A  man  and  his  wife  are  directly  responsible 
for  them  —  the  woman  cooks  their  food  and  the  man  shep- 
herds them.  All  but  six  of  them  go  to  the  kindergarten 
during  the  day,  and  the  rest  play  around  under  the  trees. 
The  police  bring  some  of  these  boys  to  us,  when  they  find 
them  castaways  or  parentless,  and  we  care  for  them  and 
educate  them  until  they  are  big  enough  to  go  out  and  fight 
their  own  battles.  In  the  orphanage,  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
from  the  bungalow,  we  have  one  cook  and  two  bread  makers. 
Wheat  is  ground  by  these  two  women  between  two  heavy 
stones  —  the  common  method  of  grinding  grain  in  India. 
Then  they  mix  it  with  water,  and  roll  it  out  into  a  flat  piece, 
as  big  as  a  tea  plate,  and  bake  it.  Once  a  day  the  boys  have 
their  unleavened  bread  and  curry,  and  for  the  other  meal  they 
have  rice  and  curry.  One  washerman  washes  all  their  clothes 
(remember  they  do  not  possess  elaborate  wardrobes  like 
white  folks),  and  one  tailor,  with  a  couple  of  boys  for  assistants 

[63] 


learning  the  trade,  makes  their  clothes.  Every  Saturday 
afternoon  I  go  down  to  the  school  and  spend  several  hours 
seeing  the  clothes  given  out  as  they  come  from  the  washer- 
man. On  Friday  the  clothes  come  and  pass  through  the 
hands  of  the  tailor  to  be  mended,  then  on  Saturday  the  boys 
receive  them.  Each  boy  has  his  name  worked  on  his  own 
things  and  must  show  it  up.  It  has  been  no  small  task  to 
learn  one  hundred  and  fifty  names  belonging  to  one  hundred 
fifty  faces.  A  house-father  acts  as  preceptor  and  is  responsi- 
ble for  the  boys  in  out-of-school  hours.  At  meal  times  he 
sounds  the  gong,  sees  that  the  boys  are  served  by  the  moni- 
tors, and  each  boy  washes  his  own  plate  and  puts  it  away. 
It  is  rather  a  convenience  that  there  are  no  knives  and  forks, 
table  cloths  and  napkins  for  the  poor  missionary  to  look 
after.  But  I  am  wishing  that  every  boy  in  the  boarding 
establishment  might  possess  a  comb  of  his  own.  It  would 
be  quite  amusing  to  you  to  see  how  very  simply  these  boys 
live,  and  how  they  get  along  without  most  of  the  para- 
phernalia that  white  boys  have  to  have,  but  I  suspect  they 
are  just  as  happy  and  will  make  just  as  good  men  when  they 
grow  up. 

Plague  has  been  devastating  the  city,  and  we  have  been 
fighting  to  keep  it  away  from  the  school.  The  boys  have 
been  warned  to  have  no  waste  paper  or  refuse  around  the 
school  premises,  and  the  sweepers  have  been  urged  to  be 
most  diligent  in  sweeping  up  dead  leaves  and  brushwood  so 
that  the  rats  would  have  no  place  to  congregate.  The  rice 
and  wheat  have  been  moved  from  the  store  house  to  another 
place,  where  the  rats  can  not  find  them  at  once.  At  this 
stage  in  the  progress  of  science,  the  rat,  I  think,  is  the  only 
known  animal  besides  man  to  contract  plague,  and  the  rat 
gets  it  first  and  gives  it  to  man.  So  government  has  been 
most  active  in  rat  extermination  and  gives  a  bonus  for  every 
rat  killed.  The  natives  are  beginning  to  overcome  their 
silly  notion  in  believing  that  the  spirits  of  dead  relatives 
inhabit  the  lower  animals  and  are  willing  to  kill  rats.  The 
cow  remains  the  sacred  animal  of  India  and  no  orthodox 
Hindu  will  eat  beef  or  lick  a  stamp.     If  in  walking  along 

[64] 


the  road  his  foot  happens  accidentally  to  touch  a  bone  of  a 
cow,  he  spends  days  in  purification  ceremony,  but  it  is  most 
interesting  to  note  that  many  of  the  strictest  Hindus  wear 
shoes.  Western  civilization  is  bound  to  have  its  influence 
on  this  country,  and  any  time  you  wish  to  go  into  a  restau- 
rant in  Bombay,  you  will  find  Hindus,  Mohammedans,  and 
even  Parsees  eating  in  the  same  room.  The  old  belief,  which 
is  gradually  dying  away,  is  that  food  is  polluted  if  cooked  or 
touched  by  one  of  another  caste  or  religion,  or  even  if  the  eyes 
of  another  is  cast  upon  it  when  one  is  eating. 

But  I  was  intending  to  say  one  other  thing  about  plague. 
Inoculation  is  coming  more  and  more  into  favor  and  govern- 
ment gives  a  present  of  a  small  sum  of  money  to  everyone  who 
will  subject  himself  to  be  inoculated.  It  is  a  process  much 
like  vaccination,  and  after  a  day  or  two  the  serum  begins  to 
act,  one's  arm  swells  up  and  becomes  painful,  and  a  slight 
fever  follows.  Whether  or  not  it  makes  one  immune  from 
plague  is  still  a  question,  but  many  cases  are  cited  of  its 
efl&ciency.  All  of  our  boys  were  inoculated  as  a  matter  of 
precaution. 

The  climate  of  Narsinghpur  is  most  delightful,  at  least  at 
this  time  of  the  year.  Miriam  has  gotten  back  the  roses 
she  had  in  Kashmir  and  we  are  all  well  and,  of  course,  happy. 

Cordially  yours, 

Ella  Scholberg. 


[65] 


Narsinghpur,  C.  P.,  India,  April  29,  1910. 
Dear  Home  Friends: 

Our  mission  owns  two  bungalows  in  this  station,  because 
formerly  there  were  two  missionary  families  here.  There 
should  be  now — one  to  have  charge  of  the  school  and  work 
shops,  and  the  other  to  be  pastor  of  the  church  and  have 
oversight  of  the  preachers  of  all  this  countryside.  It  is  too 
much  for  one  missionary  to  do,  but  he  must  do  it  as  long  as 
missionaries  are  scarce.  We  occupy  one  bungalow  and  the 
other  is  rented  to  a  high  caste  native  man  and  his  family. 
They  are  Hindus  but  are  quite  civilized.  Mr.  Lall  is  one  of 
the  judges  in  the  civil  court  here  in  Narsinghpur  and  is  a 
lawyer  of  no  mean  ability.  Being  a  Brahmin  he  has  a  keen 
intellect.  Mrs.  Lall  is  a  sweet  little  woman,  and  when  she 
wears  one  of  her  prettiest  gowns  and  her  jewelry  she  looks 
like  an  Indian  princess.  She  was  probably  married  when 
a  mere  child,  so  she  has  no  education,  and  does  not  speak 
English  like  her  husband,  but  they  are  planning  a  liberal 
education  for  their  two  little  daughters.  One  evening  they 
invited  us  over  for  dinner.  Now  that  is  very  wonderful, 
because  they  are  Hindus  and  a  Hindu  will  not  eat  with  a 
Christian,  or  even  with  another  Hindu  if  he  is  not  of  the 
same  caste.  We  have  been  invited  to  a  number  of  dinners 
and  breakfasts  in  Hindu  and  Mohammedan  homes,  but  we 
have  had  to  sit  down  and  eat  the  food  they  offered  while 
they  merely  looked  on.  But  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lall  are  civilized, 
as  I  have  said,  and  they  gave  us  a  very  nice  dinner  and  ate 
with  us,  and  we  had  the  pleasure  of  returning  the  compli- 
ment and  having  them  in  our  home.  I  found  out  from  their 
cook  that  they  never  eat  beef,  so  I  was  careful  not  to  have 
any.  In  high  caste  Hindu  and  Mohammedan  homes  the 
women  are  kept  in  strict  purdah,  or  seclusion,  never  being 
allowed  to  see  the  face  of  man,  except  a  near  relative,  but 
Mrs.  Lall  goes  out  with  her  husband  as  any  white  woman 
does,  and  has  all  the  privileges  of  associating  with  other 
people.     They  have  lost  a  great  many  friends  among  high 

[66] 


caste  Hindus,  because  of  their  belief  and  practices,  but  Mr. 
Lall  says  that  they  are  willing  to  suffer  some  persecution  in 
order  to  set  an  example  for  others  to  follow.  I  do  not  know 
how  far  they  worship  gods,  nor  how  many  Hindu  super- 
stitions they  still  cling  to,  but  I  do  know  that  they  are  far  in 
advance  of  Hindu  thought  of  to-day.  It  is  my  opinion  that 
they  are  not  allowed  to  worship  at  a  public  temple,  because 
in  the  Hindu  mind  they  are  polluted  by  their  association 
with  us,  and  in  a  way  they  are  no  longer  Hindus,  except  as 
they  choose  to  keep  it  up,  as  a  Hindu  washerman  did  who 
did  just  one  washing  for  some  missionaries  and  when  his 
caste  fellows  found  it  out,  was  made  to  pay  five  rupees  (a 
dollar  and  a  half)  to  be  restored  to  caste  again.  Five  rupees 
is  a  big  amount  when  one  considers  that  the  average  salary 
of  the  people  of  India  is  twenty-seven  rupees  a  year.  Some, 
of  course,  like  Mr.  Lall,  receive  about  one  hundred  dollars 
a  month,  but  think  how  small  an  amount  the  lowest  caste 
people  must  receive  in  order  to  bring  the  average  down  to 
the  shocking  amount  of  nine  dollars  a  year. 

I  should  like  to  tell  you  that  Baby  Dorothy  has  come 
to  make  her  home  with  us,  and  is  eight  days  old  to-day. 
She  is  a  dear,  sweet  baby  and  Miriam  has  welcomed  her  by 
giving  her  her  biggest  doll. 

In  March  we  sent  up  our  first  class  for  matriculation; 
that  is,  the  examination  finishing  high  school.  We  sent  up 
eleven  boys,  six  Christians  from  the  Orphanage  and  five 
Hindus.  The  examination  was  held  in  twelve  different 
cities,  and  we  sent  our  boys  to  Horhangabad,  the  nearest 
place.  They  took  their  bedding  with  them  and  were  gone 
two  weeks.  One  of  the  teachers  accompanied  them  to  see 
that  they  behaved  properly  away  from  home.  In  July  we 
will  know  the  result  of  the  examinations  and  I  am  sure  we 
are  as  anxious  over  it  as  the  boys  themselves. 

With  kind  regards  to  all  friends, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


67] 


August  2,  1910. 
Dear  Friends  in  the  Homeland: 

It  is  humiliating  to  write  that  only  one  boy  out  of  the 
eleven  we  sent  up  for  matriculation  managed  to  pass.  But 
still  that  record  is  not  so  bad  when  one  knows  that  only  one 
fourth  of  all  the  boys  who  took  the  examination,  all  over  India, 
got  through  successfully.  The  hard  part  of  it  is  that  they 
must  pass  in  every  subject  in  order  to  matriculate.  Suppose 
a  boy  fails  in  only  one  subject  —  then  he  is  ever  after  called 
a  "failed  matric."  The  subjects  we  have  in  high  school  here 
are  much  like  the  subjects  at  home,  and  a  matric  is  about 
two  years  behind  a  high  school  graduate  at  home.  Instead 
of  Latin  and  Greek  we  have  Persian,  Hindu,  Sanskrit,  Urdu, 
and  English,  and  instead  of  the  history  of  the  United  States 
we  teach  the  history  of  India.  Last  week,  Mr.  Scholberg 
was  away  and  I  had  the  joy  of  teaching  some  of  his  classes. 
The  class  in  English,  seventh,  or  highest  class,  were  reading 
the  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow,  and  short  sketches  from 
English  history.  When  I  would  enter  the  class  room,  every 
pupil  rose  to  his  feet  and  remained  standing  until  I  seated 
myself.  And  likewise  when  class  was  over  and  I  left  the 
room.  It  is  just  the  custom  in  this  land.  I  was  afraid  the 
Hindu  and  Mohammedan  boys  would  resent  my  teaching 
them.  They  are  not  accustomed  to  the  thought  that  a  woman 
can  possibly  know  anything.  But  they  never  once  showed 
me  that  they  felt  I  was  incapable,  and  I  found  them  much 
more  respectful  than  I  ever  found  a  set  of  boys  in  America. 

For  fifteen  days  now  we  have  not  had  rain,  and  this 
is  the  rainy  season,  when  it  is  usually  raining  continually 
day  and  night.  Bombay  has  had  only  26  inches  of  rainfall 
so  far,  and  her  annual  rainfall  is  about  70  inches.  Of  course, 
there  is  another  month  yet  of  the  monsoon  season.  If  rain 
does  not  come  soon  we  will  have  a  famine  and  high  prices 
and  cholera  and  death  everywhere.  Pessimists  are  already 
predicting  a  famine,  but  it  is  cloudy  to-day  and  we  may  have 
rain.  One  of  the  worst  things  about  high  prices  is  that  they 
stay  high  even  after  the  famine  is  over.  Since  we  have  been 
in  India,  prices  of  commodities  have  increased  about  thirty 
per  cent,  and  they  seem  to  be  steadily  increasing,  even  though 

[681 


so  far  we  have  seen  no  famine.  I  do  not  know  what  we  will 
do  if  a  famine  raises  them  much  higher.  Oh,  but  here  comes 
the  rain  —  sheets  and  sheets  and  sheets  of  it!  This  is 
certainly  a  return  of  the  monsoon,  and  will  surely  wash  away 
all  the  dreams  of  the  pessimists. 

Our  deputy  commissioner  here,  a  young  man  who  has 
traveled  extensively,  delights  to  air  his  views  of  America 
before  us.  He  told  one  time  that  he  found  most  of  the 
women  in  America  chewing  gum,  and  one  of  our  missionaries 

said,  ''I  am  really  sorry,  Mr.  C ,  that  you  got  in  with  that 

society."  Since  then  he  has  made  no  more  remarks  about 
gum  chewing,  but  he  likes  to  tell  how  disrespectful  he  found 
the  American  people.  He  said  there  seemed  to  be  no  sub- 
ordinate class  —  no  one  to  wait  on  him  and  serve  him  —  not 
even  one  to  tell  him  politely  whether  he  was  going  in  the 
right  direction.  After  England,  and  India  especially,  he 
found  America  very  trying.  We  tried  to  explain  that  the 
subordinate  idea  is  not  a  very  popular  one  with  Americans. 
Even  a  bootblack  feels  himself  about  as  big  as  the  man 
whose  boots  he  is  blacking  —  and  who  knows  but  that  he 
w^ll  be  some  day?  The  country  one  happens  to  be  born  in, 
of  course,  shapes  one's  life,  and  we  have  never  been  sorry  we 
were  born  in  America. 

That  leads  me  to  say  that  when  we  were  in  Kashmir,  one 
of  the  boatmen  said,  in  the  simplicity  of  his  mind,  that  he 
was  sure  when  one  of  our  party  went  to  America  he  would 
be  made  a  lord,  because  he  was  such  a  good  man.  And  we 
said,  "No,  because  in  America  we  did  not  have  lords,  and 
such."  And  in  wonder  he  asked,  ''Sub  log  sahib  log  hain?^^ 
And  we  answered,  "Yes,  every  man  is  a  gentleman  in 
America."  Oh,  he  thought  that  must  be  an  ideal  country, 
and  he  wanted  some  day  to  go  there.  It  must  be  awful, 
don't  you  agree  with  me,  to  always  be  as  low  down  as  you 
happen  to  be  born,  and  always  be  a  hated  subordinate? 

Well,  time  is  up  if  I  want  this  letter  to  be  sent  to-day. 
Mail  must  leave  Narsinghpur  to-day  at  six  p.  m.  in  order  to 
reach  the  steamer  in  Bombay  harbor  at  two  p.  m.  to-morrow. 

Sincerely  yours, 

Ella  Scholberg. 

[69] 


Narsinghpur,  India,  November  i8,  1910. 
Dear  Friends  in  the  Homeland: 

Many  friends  have  asked  what  language  Miriam  is 
learning  out  here.  Just  now  she  has  the  use  of  two  languages, 
Hindi  and  English,  both  of  which  she  speaks  with  equal 
ease,  and  whenever  we  go  to  a  new  locality  she  picks  up  the 
language  used  there.  You  must  remember  that  India  is  a 
country  of  one  over  hundred  languages,  and  twice  as  many 
dialects,  and  the  people  of  one  part  scarcely  understand  the 
language  of  another  part,  so  diversified  are  their  tongues. 
Hindustani  of  course  is  the  main  language,  like  a  tree  trunk, 
and  Hindi  and  Urdu  are  two  very  important  branches. 
Marathi  is  spoken  by  twenty  million  people  on  Bombay  side, 
though  the  Marathi  spoken  in  Bombay  differs  widely  from  the 
village  Marathi  spoken  up  country.  The  Calcutta  mission- 
aries have  to  learn  Bengali,  while  in  South  India,  Kanarese, 
Tamil,  Telegu  and  a  number  of  other  languages  are  spoken. 
When  we  were  in  Belgaum  one  time  for  vacation,  Miriam 
learned  a  number  of  Kanarese  words  and  when  we  went  to 
Kashmir,  she  learned  to  talk  Kashmiri.  She  illustrates  the 
aptitude  that  all  children  have  for  languages,  and  she  under- 
stands the  people  of  this  country  much  better  than  I  do,  though 
she  does  not  need  to  spend  the  hours  I  do  in  study.  She 
never  makes  the  mistake  of  speaking  Hindi  to  me  or  English 
to  the  servants.  If  I  do  not  know  a  word  in  Hindi,  I  find  it 
out  from  her  by  asking  her  to  express  that  thought  to  some 
black  person  standing  around.  For  instance,  she  asked  me 
one  time  to  take  her  down  from  her  high  chair,  and  I  said 
to  her,  ''Tell  your  servant  to  put  you  down."  So  I  learned 
the  word  for  "put  me  down"  (it  is  just  one  word),  and  if  I 
had  asked  her  ''What  is  the  word  for  'put  me  down,'  in 
Hindi,"  she  never  would  have  been  able  to  tell.  She  knows 
there  is  one  way  to  make  me  understand  what  she  wants, 
and  another  way  to  make  the  people  here  understand,  but  she 
has  no  idea  she  is  using  two  different  languages. 

Our  new  viceroy  and  governor-general  of  India  is  arriv- 

[70] 


ing  in  Bombay  to-day  and  will  pass  through  here  to-morrow 
morning  at  5  o'clock  on  his  way  to  Calcutta.  Of  course  at 
that  hour  no  one  would  be  able  to  see  him,  but  the  district 
superintendent  of  police,  with  all  his  constables  and  officers, 
must  go  to  the  station  and  be  on  guard,  as  His  Excellency's 
special  train  will  stop  here  twenty  minutes.  Mr.  Coode, 
the  D.  S.  P.,  has  been  very  busy  the  last  few  weeks,  seeing  that 
the  railroad  track  has  been  guarded  day  and  night.  He 
says  that  the  special  is  to  make  three  stops  in  this  district 
(or  county),  and  when  the  train  stops  the  danger  begins,  as 
no  one  would  be  so  wild  as  to  throw  a  bomb  at  a  moving 
train.  They  could  not  get  near  enough  to  do  so,  without 
being  detected,  but  in  a  crowd  at  a  station  one  could  easily 
go  undiscovered.  Shortly  after  Lord  and  Lady  Hardinge 
arrive  in  the  capital  city.  Their  Excellencies  the  Earl  and 
Countess  of  Minto  will  leave  for  home.  Farewell  receptions, 
teas,  garden  parties,  dinners,  reviews  of  troops,  have  been 
the  order  of  the  day  for  months  past  and  it  seems  that  folks 
generally  have  been  pleased  with  His  Excellency's  administra- 
tion. He  has  done  a  great  deal  of  good  in  five  years,  and  has 
introduced  many  reform  measures  —  he  and  Lord  Morley, 
who  is  the  Home  Secretary  of  State  for  India.  His  admin- 
istration began  in  dark  days,  and  the  clouds  seem  to  be  some- 
what lifted  now,  though  no  one  thinks  of  being  less  vigilant. 
Only  one  attempt  has  been  made  on  Lord  Minto's  life,  but 
all  sorts  of  precautions  are  constantly  being  taken.  It  is 
rumored  that  perhaps  just  after  his  coronation  in  England, 
His  Majesty,  King  George,  may  come  out  here  and  be 
crowned  here  as  Emperor  of  India.  It  will  be  a  desparately 
risky  thing  to  do,  but  seeing  the  face  of  their  Emperor  may 
quiet  the  spirits  of  some  of  these  dissatisfied  subjects.  It  is  a 
great  comfort  to  be  just  a  common  citizen  and  to  go  and  come 
as  one  pleases,  with  no  fear  of  bombs  or  pistols.  Our  greatest 
danger  seems  to  be  from  snakes  just  now,  as  two  have  been 
found  in  our  house  in  the  last  few  months.  Neither  has  bit- 
ten us,  however.  They  were  small  snakes,  but  very  poisonous, 
and  the  servants  drove  them  out.  I  hope  no  one  will  think 
I  am  bragging  when  I  write  of  having  servants.     We  have 

[71] 


six  and  pay  them  collectively  twelve  dollars  a  month,  without 
food  and  clothes.  It  would  be  foolish  for  me  to  do  my  house- 
work in  this  hot  country  when  I  can  get  servants  so  cheaply. 
But  there  are  lots  of  folks  who  go  around  in  America  talking 
about  the  troops  of  servants  missionaries  have,  and  the  conse- 
quent elegance  and  luxury  they  live  in.  We  try  to  be  com- 
fortable and  take  care  of  our  health,  because  we  do  not  want 
to  go  home  in  a  day.  It  is  economy  for  the  missionary 
society  to  put  its  missionaries  in  cool,  comfortable  homes, 
and  give  them  enough  of  a  salary  to  keep  themselves  in 
proper  food  and  health.  Money  is  too  precious  to  be  wasting 
it  in  sending  missionaries  on  furlough  after  only  a  couple  of 
years  of  service.  Many  have  asked  how  long  we  are  going 
to  stay  out  here:  the  term  is  ten  years,  but  with  the  advance 
in  commerce  and  lessening  of  rates  of  travel,  it  is  quite  possi- 
ble the  society  will  fix  seven  years  as  the  limit,  though  mis- 
sionaries have  something  else  to  occupy  their  attention 
besides  thinking  of  furlough  time.  We  are  a  busy,  happy 
family  out  here  —  I  have  yet  to  see  a  discouraged  or  dis- 
satisfied missionary.  Many  have  asked  if  we  will  come 
back  after  furlough.  That  is  rather  too  far  in  the  future  for 
me  to  see  clearly,  but  I  know  that  we  are  needed  here. 

Sincerely  yours, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


[72] 


Narsinghpur,  C.  P.,  India,  February  2,  191 1. 
Dear  Home  Friends: 

A  hundred  times  a  day  I  breathe  a  prayer  of  thankfulness 
that  I  was  born  in  America.  I  always  thought  I  was  patriotic 
but  I'm  sure  if  I  ever  loved  my  country,  it  is  now.  I  have  an 
unutterable  longing  to  show  my  own  beloved  land  to  my  two 
little  girls,  and  I  hope  the  time  will  come  when  they  can  re- 
ceive their  education  in  America.  We  hear  very  much  out 
here  against  American  customs,  especially  the  co-education 
system,  women  taking  positions  in  the  business  world,  the 
freedom  of  women  socially  and  the  rough  and  ready  way  that 
people  get  into  generally.  Out  here  woman  is  so  down- 
trodden that  she  gets  a  good  beating  from  her  husband  if 
she  dares  to  stick  her  nose  outside  her  door.  A  special 
enclosure,  with  a  high  wall,  is  made  at  the  back  of  their 
houses  and  she  is  never  allowed  to  go  out  except  in  a  closed 
carriage.  Suppose  she  is  going  to  make  a  call:  First  the 
servants  make  an  enclosed  passage-way,  from  the  house  door 
to  the  carriage  door,  by  unrolling  and  holding  up  two  long 
strips  of  cloth.  Then  her  ladyship  comes  out,  scuttles 
quickly  into  the  carriage  and  the  door  is  closed,  the  carriage 
driver,  sitting  up  on  the  box,  having  turned  away  his  head 
in  the  meantime.  She  always  has  at  least  one  driver  and  two 
footmen,  whose  duty  it  wiU  be  to  help  her  to  alight.  The 
servants  she  has  about  her  house  sometimes  are  men  servants, 
but  they  must  never  be  caught  looking  at  their  mistress  and 
they  are  trained  to  go  about  their  work  with  downcast  eyes. 
When  she  arrives  at  her  destination,  a  footman  sends  word 
in  that  she  has  arrived  and  the  strips  of  cloth  are  again 
unrolled,  the  coachman  stands  in  respect,  and  fixes  his  eyes 
on  a  point  in  the  dim  horizon,  her  ladyship  gathers  up  her 
robes  and  runs  to  the  house.  Heavy  blinds  on  all  doors  and 
windows  prevent  any  servant  of  her  hostess  from  seeing  her. 
She  is  received  in  the  woman's  part  of  the  house,  called  the 
harem,  or  zenana,  and  the  men  of  course  do  not  come  near 
while  she  is  making  her  call.  Woman's  suffrage  does  not 
become  the  topic  of  their  conversation,  but  the  small  talk 

[73] 


consistent  with  their  narrow  lives.  Our  Bible  women  are 
allowed  to  visit  in  these  homes,  and  of  course  that  helps  to 
brighten  their  dull  lives.  Sometimes  a  man  is  as  mean  as 
to  object  to  any  white  woman  coming  to  see  his  wife,  as  she 
may  put  silly  ideas  into  his  wife's  head  or  make  her  dis- 
satisfied with  her  lot.  But  as  a  usual  rule  they  are  not  sus- 
picious of  us,  as  missionaries  have  been  very  cautious  in  this 
visitation,  knowing  that  if  the  door  is  once  closed,  it  may  be 
centuries  before  it  is  opened  again.  We  ask  them  to  come 
and  see  us  (that  is,  we  ask  the  husbands  if  they  will  kindly 
allow  their  wives  to  come),  and  they  are  glad  to  do  so,  if  their 
husbands  approve.  I  have  to  assure  them  that  my  husband 
will  not  be  at  home,  nor  any  men  servants.  They  are 
interested  in  our  beds,  and  our  dining  table,  and  our  knives 
and  forks.  And  the  old  rocking  chair  —  how  they  rock  and 
rock  in  it,  each  taking  it  by  turn !  And  the  sewing  machine — 
they  want  to  see  it  really  work.  And  they  ask  if  I  have  a 
father  and  mother  and  I  take  down  the  family  picture  and 
point  out  each  one.  Then  they  ask  me  where  the  husbands 
of  my  sisters  are  and  I  tell  them  that  only  one  sister  is 
married,  and  they  ask  how  many  times  her  husband  has  had 
to  beat  her.  They  do  not  believe  the  other  sisters  are  not 
married,  or  if  they  do,  they  think  my  parents  must  be  very 
low  caste  indeed,  not  to  have  succeeded  in  getting  husbands 
for  all  their  daughters.  They  think  that  I  do  not  love  my 
people  that  I've  come  so  far  away.  Then  they  go  in  rever- 
ence and  on  tip-toe  to  Mr.  Scholberg's  office,  and  his  type- 
writer astonishes  them  beyond  words.  I  tell  them  that  I 
have  a  sister  who  spends  much  of  her  time  writing  on  a 
typewriter,  and  they  can't  believe  it.  Then  they  want  to  see 
all  my  clothes,  and  they  ask  how  much  each  material  costs 
per  yard.  And  they  say  they  have  heard  that  white  people 
do  not  bathe  every  day  and  they  wonder  if  it  can  be  true. 
And  is  Miriam  almost  four  and  not  yet  betrothed?  Have  I 
no  mother-love  that  I  haven't  picked  out  a  husband  for  her 
and  sealed  the  agreement  with  presents  and  a  sum  of  money? 
And  then  they  go  home  to  their  narrow,  shut-in  existence, 
and  talk  for  days  of  the  wonderful  things  they  saw  in  the 
white  woman's  house. 

[74] 


Two  women,  the  wives  of  a  Mohammedan,  were  very 
anxious  to  come  to  see  our  house,  but  were  sure  the  husband 
would  not  let  them.  We  wanted  to  ask  him,  but  they  begged 
us  not  to,  assuring  us  that  he  would  beat  them  if  he  knew 
they  ever  entertained  such  a  thought.  So  they  suggested 
that  they  wait  until  one  of  the  great  feast  days  of  the  Mo- 
hammedans, and  in  the  evening  time  when  all  their  women 
are  allowed  to  go  to  a  certain  place  of  worship,  they  would 
slip  away  without  being  noticed  and  come  over  to  make  a 
call.     But  of  course  we  would  not  allow  that. 

Government  is  preparing  to  take  the  census  of  India  and 
is  finding  it  the  usual  difficult  task.  The  people  are  so  sus- 
picious of  anything  that  savors  of  government  that  they 
do  not  give  information  very  gladly.  They  think  it  means  a 
tax  or  some  new  oppression.  Especially  they  are  having 
trouble  with  the  foreign  element  —  like  the  Chinese.  They 
fear  it  means  expulsion  from  the  country,  and  the  result  is 
that  John  is  mum.  As  missionaries  we  can  be  of  great  use  to 
the  officials  in  their  work,  and  of  course  we  are  glad  to  do 
what  we  can.  Speaking  of  oppression,  I  do  not  mean  that 
the  English  government  oppresses  the  people,  far  from  that. 
But  you  see,  the  common  native  comes  into  very  little  contact 
with  the  European  official,  and  therefore  knows  very  little 
of  him.  For  instance,  an  official  goes  out  on  tour  in  his 
district.  He  has  a  dozen  bullock  carts  to  carry  his  tents,  bed, 
table,  cooking  utensils,  servants,  and  all  camp  requisites. 
His  retinue  go  out  on  the  day  before  their  master  arrives, 
pitch  his  tents  in  a  cool,  shady  place  near  a  village,  and  order 
eggs,  milk,  chickens,  and  any  fruit  or  vegetables  they  might 
be  able  to  get.  The  poor  people  bring  in  their  produce  day 
after  day  as  long  as  he  stays  in  that  place,  and  when  they 
come  for  their  pay,  the  head  servant  calls  them  all  together 
and  tells  them  his  master  won't  pay  them  anything  as  he 
is  a  government  official  and  they  must  give  their  products 
to  him,  and  lest  they  dare  go  to  him  and  complain,  he  assures 
them  that  they  will  get  their  heads  cut  off.  Then  the  servant 
presents  his  bill  to  his  master  —  twelve  cents  a  dozen  for 
eggs,  four  cents  a  quart  for  milk,  twenty  cents  for  every 
chicken  —  and  the  official,  of  course,  pays  it,  not  dreaming 

[75] 


that  it  goes  no  farther  than  the  servant's  pocket.  So  you 
see  government  gets  the  name  of  being  oppressive,  as  there 
are  always  the  middlemen  (natives,  and  therefore  rascals) 
who  do  all  the  harm. 

We  were  taking  a  walk  the  other  evening  just  at  dusk,  and 
we  saw  the  farmers  leaving  their  farms,  and  new  hands 
coming  on  for  night  watches.  Their  grain  is  just  ripening 
now  and  the  farmer  watches  it  by  day  to  see  that  no  one 
comes  and  steals  it,  and  at  night  his  wife  or  his  grown-up 
son  comes  to  stand  guard  and  make  noises  all  night  long  to 
scare  coyotes,  jackals,  foxes,  wild  hogs,  or  other  destructive 
animals  away.  They  each  own  an  acre  or  two,  and  what 
grain  they  are  able  to  keep  from  thieves  and  wild  animals 
is  scarcely  enough  to  feed  and  clothe  them  after  the  taxes 
are  paid.  Being  unable  to  read  or  write,  they  are  fooled 
into  paying  twice  as  much  tax  as  they  need  to  pay,  and  they 
never  think  of  complaining  because  they  would  get  into  more 
trouble,  they  fear.  Can  you  see  why  I  am  so  glad  I  was  not 
born  in  India? 

But  see,  I've  contradicted  myself  in  this  letter.  I  write 
that  women  are  not  allowed  to  stick  their  noses  out  of  their 
houses,  and  that  the  farmer  sends  his  wife  out  to  watch  his 
grain.  But  you  see  I'm  writing  of  the  rich  and  the  poor. 
The  low  caste  women,  of  course,  work  on  the  street  or  wher- 
ever their  work  is,  without  being  afraid  of  being  seen  by  men. 
But  the  coolie  women,  and  others  whose  husbands  allow  them 
to  go  out  freely,  have  very  hard  lives  in  that  they  must  work 
as  hard  as  men. 

I  have  rambled  on  and  on,  and  I'm  sure  that  Mr.  Editor 
has  frowned  a  very  big  frown  at  all  these  pages.  But  he  is 
at  liberty  to  cut  out  whatever  he  wants  to,  or  feed  the  whole 
thing  to  the  goat — the  goat  is  the  waste  paper  basket.  The 
goat,  you  know,  eats  any  kind  of  trash. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 

Editor's  note. —  Our  "goat"  does  not  get  fat  on  articles 
like  the  above.     Let  us  have  more  of  them. 

[76I 


Panchgani,   May  4,    191 1. 
Dear  Home  Friends: 

Periodically  every  year  we  have  to  betake  ourselves 
to  the  hills.  The  winter  months  are  fairly  cool  and  we  can 
live  in  some  degree  of  comfort,  but  when  the  springtime 
comes  living  is  simply  a  burden  and  work  impossible.  In 
April  it  gets  very  hot,  but  by  May  the  heat  is  so  terrible 
that  people  flee  for  their  lives.  It  is  always  hard  for  mis- 
sionaries to  get  away  from  their  work,  especially  folks  like 
us  who  have  an  orphanage  to  look  after.  Mr.  Scholberg 
is  still  down  holding  the  fort,  while  I  am  up  here  with  the 
children.  I  think  we  would  have  lost  our  little  Miriam  if 
I  had  tried  to  stay  down  any  longer,  and  it  will  be  weeks  now 
before  she  gets  her  strength  back.  The  heat  was  just  grad- 
ually sapping  her  strength  away.  When  one  loses  step  in 
the  march  for  existence  out  in  this  land,  it  means  to  drop 
back  altogether.  There  is  no  catching  up  by  extra  exertion. 
The  only  thing  is  to  get  away  to  the  hills,  or  to  another 
climate. 

All  through  April  we  had  our  house  closed  up  tight, 
all  the  doors  and  windows,  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
Then  we  breathed  the  same  air  over  and  over  again  all  day 
—  which  of  course  is  very  unhygienic.  But  impure  air  can 
be  breathed  and  hot  air  can  not.  Then  the  pundahs  were 
set  going.  A  pundah  is  a  huge  fan  suspended  from  the 
ceiling,  and  attached  to  it  is  a  rope  which,  going  through  the 
wall,  is  pulled  by  a  coolie  outside.  It  takes  the  place  of  an 
electric  fan.  In  the  evening  about  six  o'clock  we  open 
the  doors  and  venture  out.  It  is  the  time  of  day  when 
life  is  least  worth  living.  The  earth  is  thoroughly  baked 
and  the  air  still  hot.  Not  a  breeze  is  stirring.  Inside  it  is 
unbearable,  as  the  air  is  "stuffy"  and  the  mosquitoes 
are  just  beginning  to  tune  up  for  their  evening  concert. 
They  come  from  every  corner  in  the  house,  and  begin  to 
make  merry.  Of  all  the  tormentors  this  world  can  boast  of, 
I  believe  the  mosquito  holds  first  prize.     There  are  many 

[77] 


different  varieties  out  here,  and  certain  ones  can  give  malaria, 
and  others  cannot.  But  we  do  not  discriminate  —  we  keep 
as  far  as  we  can  from  them  all.  Our  beds  are  set  outside 
and  nets  put  over  them  —  that  is,  nets  are  hung  from  four 
poles  and  we  sleep  inside,  all  closed  in  from  mosquitoes  or 
scorpions.  But  sleep  does  not  come  until  about  three  or 
four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  one  has  to  get  up  early  as 
people  begin  passing  on  the  street.  Most  folks  can  endure 
hot  days  if  the  nights  are  cool,  so  the  winters  in  this  country 
are  endurable.  But  when 'hot  nights  come,  one  longs  for 
the  hills.  This  place,  Panchgani,  is  forty-five  hundred  feet 
above  the  sea  level  and  is  delightfully  cool.  Hotel  rates  are 
very  high  —  three  and  four  dollars  a  day,  for  very  inferior 
board  —  so  we  have  rented  a  little  cottage,  for  which  we  have 
to  pay  twenty-five  dollars  a  month.  Mr.  Scholberg  will  be 
up  here  after  a  while,  when  some  one  else  comes  to  have 
supervision  of  the  orphanage,  and  the  strength  we  can  lay 
up  in  the  hills  has  to  last  all  the  rest  of  the  year.  We  are 
not  spending  the  time  in  idleness  either.  I  have  yards  and 
yards  of  letters  to  write  —  scholarship  letters  —  and  many 
other  duties  that  had  to  be  neglected. 

Schools  are  established  for  white  children  in  all  hill 
stations.  After  another  year  Miriam  must  be  put  in  school, 
and  we  are  talking  of  Queen's  Hill  School  at  Darjeeling. 
It  is  in  the  Himalayas,  and  she  will  have  the  benefit  of  that 
climate  from  April  i  until  Christmas.  Vacation  in  all  hill 
schools  continues  through  the  three  winter  months  —  Jan- 
uary, February,  and  March  —  and  she  will  stay  at  home 
those  months.  Queen's  Hill  School  for  Girls  is  managed 
entirely  by  American  teachers  and  is  considered  one  of  the 
best  schools  in  India  for  girls.  Wellesley  Girls'  School  at 
Naini  Tal  is  another  good  one.  Missionaries'  children 
generally  go  through  high  school  here,  and  then  are  sent 
home  for  further  education.  The  high  schools  here  are 
very  good,  but  English  people  in  government  service  never 
allow  their  children  to  be  educated  out  here.  They  send 
their  children  home  when  they  are  very  young  —  especially 
their  boys.     If  they  want  government  positions  for  their 


sons,  they  must  have  them  educated  in  England.  It  is 
more  in  the  name  of  it  than  anything  else,  I  think,  though 
of  course  one  can  see  why  an  education  in  England  is  very 
important  for  one  who  is  to  go  into  government  service. 
I  suppose  most  of  you  have  only  the  faintest  idea  of 
what  Hinduism  is  like.  I  must  confess  I  myself  do  not 
know  much  about  it, —  that  is,  the  Hindu  religion  itself, — 
but  we  can  judge  it  by  its  fruits.  I  think  I  will  tell  you 
something  of  Hinduism  in  my  next  letter. 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


[79] 


Narsinghpur,  India,  July  13,  191 1. 
Dear  Friends  in  the  Homeland: 

Most  of  you,  I  suppose,  have  only  the  faintest  idea  of 
what  Hinduism  is  like.  As  far  as  the  religion  itself  is  con- 
cerned, I  must  confess  I  know  very  little  about  it  myself, 
but  one  cannot  help  but  see  the  effect  it  has  had  on  the  lives 
of  the  people  of  Hindustan.  I  never,  never  could  paint  the 
social  system  of  this  country  in  black  enough  colors  —  it  is 
so  fearfully  corrupt.  I  imagine  I  know  very  little  of  the 
wickedness  of  America,  but  I  do  know  that  a  child  can  be 
born  in  America  and  can  grow  up  in  purity  and  in  ignorance 
of  wicked  things,  while  out  here  the  very  beginning  of  a 
child's  life  is  wicked.  Everything  its  little  eyes  look  upon  in 
infancy  has  some  evil  signification.  What  filthy  ideas  it 
does  not  get  from  its  own  parents,  as  it  grows  older,  it  is  sure 
to  get  from  the  children  on  the  street.  It  has  no  choice  in 
the  matter,  and  when  manhood  or  womanhood  comes  there 
is  no  physical  or  mental  strength  to  fight  the  tendencies  that 
one  knows  are  wrong. 

But  even  if  I  did  know  more  of  the  Hindu  religion,  I 
would  not  write  a  letter  describing  it.  In  the  first  place, 
it  would  make  the  Big  Stone  County  Journal  turn  red  for 
very  shame,  and  in  the  second  place,  the  authorities  would 
arrest  Mr.  Editor  for  publishing  obscene  literature.  But  I 
think  I  may  be  especially  privileged  to  tell  a  Hindu  story,  if 
I  faithfully  promise  never  to  do  it  again.  This  is  not  a  very 
bad  story  and  it  illustrates  the  depth  of  their  religion.  One 
of  the  principal  gods  of  India  is  Ganesh  or  Gunpat.  He 
has  the  head  of  an  elephant,  and  if  you  ask  a  Hindu  the 
reason  why,  this  is  the  story  he  will  tell  you: 

Shiv  is  one  of  the  three  great  gods  and  Parvati  is  his  wife. 
One  time  he  was  away  from  home,  and  strange  things  hap- 
pened. Parvati  was  taking  a  bath  and,  as  the  custom  is 
here,  had  rubbed  cocoanut  oil  over  her  body  first.  Then  in 
the  process  of  her  bath  she  rubbed  off  a  handful  of  dirt  and, 
moulding  it  in  her  hands,  made  a  doll  of  it.     It  pleased  her  so 

[80] 


greatly  that  she  prayed  it  might  have  life.  She  found  she 
had  a  little  daughter.  Not  satisfied,  she  repeated  the  process 
and  obtained  a  son.  These  children  grew  up  and  became  a 
great  joy  to  Parvati's  heart.  But  one  day  one  of  the  other 
gods  sent  her  word  that  Shiv  was  coming  home.  She  knew 
that  he  would  be  angry  at  finding  these  children  in  his  home, 
so  she  wisely  put  the  boy  outside  the  door  where  the  father 
would  see  him  first  and  perhaps  be  glad  that  he  had  a  son. 
In  terror  she  hid  the  little  girl  in  a  storeroom,  where  only  salt 
was  kept,  and  the  poor  child  was  smothered.  Pious  Hindus 
will  eat  no  salt  in  their  food  on  the  days  that  celebrate  the 
homecoming  of  Shiv.  But  it  was  as  she  expected.  The 
great  god  came  thundering  along,  and  seeing  a  child  on  his 
doorstep,  drew  out  his  sword  and  cut  off  its  head.  Then  he 
went  in  and  found  his  wife  in  tears.  Her  explanations  seemed 
to  satisfy  him,  for  he  repented  of  his  rash  deed,  and  promised 
her  that  he  would  cut  off  the  head  of  the  first  creature  that 
came  along  the  next  day,  stick  it  onto  his  boy's  body  and 
cause  him  to  live.  The  next  day  one  of  the  other  gods  was 
sending  a  message  to  Shiv  by  his  messenger,  the  elephant,  and 
Shiv,  true  to  his  promise,  cut  off  its  head  and  stuck  it  on  his 
boy's  shoulders.  So  the  image  of  Gunpat  has  an  elephant's 
head.  Sometime  in  September  the  Gunpati  festival  is  held, 
and  millions  of  images  of  this  god  are  made  and  carried  down 
to  the  river  or  lake  and  thrown  into  the  water.  They  are 
made  of  a  sort  of  paper  pulp  which  easily  dissolves  in  the 
water.  Many  folks  are  themselves  drowned  every  year  in 
Bombay,  by  carrying  their  images  out  too  far  when  the  tide 
is  out.  No  matter  how  poor  a  Hindu  is,  he  buys  an  image  of 
this  god  to  immerse  on  this  day. 

A  heathen  is  not  one  who  has  no  religion,  but  one  who  has 
a  false  one.  India  is  a  very  religious  country,  as  one  can  see 
by  the  great  number  of  devotees  on  every  side  bowing  down 
to  some  image,  a  sacred  fire  or  the  sun,  or  just  worshiping  in 
the  direction  of  Mecca.  I  suppose  if  the  truth  were  told, 
Christians  spend  the  least  time  in  prayer  of  them  all.  But 
if  we  should  say  that  in  order  to  accept  Christianity  you 
must  spend  so  much  time  in  prayer,  read  so  many  prayers  a 

[8i] 


day,  or  pray  so  many  times  a  day  —  if  that  is  all  Chris- 
tianity meant  —  we  could  get  any  number  of  converts.  But 
when  we  say,  "Your  heart  must  be  clean  before  your  prayer 
can  be  heard,"  that,  of  course,  is  an  entirely  new  religion. 
The  Mohammedans  wash  their  feet  before  they  go  to  pray. 
We  are  never  allowed  to  go  inside  their  mosques,  for  fear  of 
polluting  them.  But  we  can  go  inside  Hindu  temples  (that 
is,  the  outer  court),  by  taking  off  our  shoes  and  stockings. 
I  have  done  it,  especially  in  Kashmir,  a  few  times,  simply  to 
see  their  carving  and  ancient  handiwork,  as  it  is  a  very 
interesting  study. 

Before  the  English  came,  this  country  must  have  been 
in  an  awful  state  with  all  the  crimes  that  are  committed  in 
the  name  of  religion.  The  English  have  put  a  stop  to  the 
suttee,  that  is  the  practice  of  burning  a  woman  alive  with 
the  body  of  her  dead  husband.  And  girls  are  not  allowed  in 
some  of  the  states  to  be  sold  or  given  to  the  priests  of  a 
temple  to  be  kept  there  all  the  rest  of  their  lives.  Neither 
will  they  allow  a  mother  to  dig  out  her  child's  eyes,  or  dis- 
figure its  body  in  order  to  give  it  a  chance  to  beg  when  it 
grows  up.  Just  lately  a  peculiar  case  was  tried  in  court, 
which  might  illustrate  the  influence  of  religion  upon  the  lives 
of  the  people.  A  woman,  who  had  had  nine  sons  and  two 
daughters,  but  whose  sons  had  all  died  in  infancy,  was  told 
by  the  priest  that  if  she  made  a  sacrifice  of  some  other  little 
child,  she  would  be  able  to  have  a  son  live  to  maturity. 
She  got  her  husband's  cousin,  whose  name  was  Govind,  to 
help  her  in  her  plan,  threatening  to  become  a  witch  herself 
and  murder  him  in  cold  blood  if  he  would  not  help  her. 
They  proved  in  court  that  he  was  a  weak-minded  fellow  and 
gave  him  the  sentence  of  transportation  for  five  years. 
Together  this  woman  and  Govind  took  a  neighbor's  child 
which  was  sitting  alone  in  the  dooryard,  when  its  father  and 
mother  were  out  in  the  field  working,  took  it  off  to  a  secluded 
spot,  and  performed  the  sacred  rites  necessary  to  give  the 
woman  her  heart's  desire.  They  swung  the  child  three  times 
over  the  woman's  head,  then  smothered  it  to  death,  cut 
out  its  liver  and  fried  it  in  butter,  and  piously  ate  it  together. 

[82] 


The  mutilated  body  they  left  in  a  field  to  make  it  seem  that 
the  child  had  met  its  death  by  being  torn  to  pieces  by  wild 
beasts.  They  passed  a  death  sentence  upon  this  wicked 
woman,  and  let  the  priests,  who  had  taught  this  woman  to 
commit  this  deed,  go  scot-free. 

What  these  praying  hordes  of  India  pray  for  is  a  mystery 
to  me  —  they  certainly  never  pray  that  they  may  live  better 
or  nobler  lives,  or  if  they  do,  their  prayers  along  that  line  are 
never  answered.  The  more  immoral  or  sinful  a  Hindu  is, 
the  better  Hindu  he  becomes.  Christianity  is  the  only 
religion  over  here  that  has  anything  about  purity  or  goodness 
or  righteousness  in  it,  though  one  time  I  was  trying  to  make 
a  bargain  with  a  Mohammedan  and  he  was  telling  such  high 
prices  that  I  said  to  him,  "Now,  to-morrow  is  your  great 
prayer  day  (Friday) ,  so  you  would  better  tell  me  the  truth 
about  the  price  of  these  goods,"  and  he  said,  "Oh,  yes, 
Madam  Sahib,  I  would  not  tell  a  lie  to-day."  But  when  we 
finally  agreed  upon  a  price  considerably  lower,  and  I  re- 
minded him  that  he  had  not  told  me  the  truth  in  the  begin- 
ning, he  said,  "  Oh,  that  was  just  one  lie, "  and  he  was  sure  his 
Allah  could  forgive  him  one. 

Concerning  the  Parsees,  or  fire-worshipers,  in  this 
matter  of  goodness  they  believe  that  the  number  of  good 
deeds  or  bad  deeds  are  counted,  and  if  they  have  done  more 
good  deeds  in  their  lifetime  than  bad  ones,  the  bridge 
across  into  their  heaven  will  lie  flat  like  a  sword,  and  they 
can  walk  across,  but  if  the  bad  deeds  are  more  in  number  the 
sharp  edge  will  turn  up  and  they  will  be  cut  in  two.  If 
they  give  two  coins  to  two  different  beggars  in  the  morning, 
and  steal  one  hundred  dollars  at  night,  the  balance  that  day 
will  be  in  their  favor,  for  they  have  done  two  good  deeds  and 
only  one  bad  one.  Such  is  the  righteousness  of  the  Parsee 
religion. 

Some  folks  told  us,  before  we  came  out  to  India,  that  we 
were  simply  wasting  our  lives.  We  have  never  seen  it  in 
that  light,  especially  after  coming  out  here  and  seeing  the 
condition  of  the  people.  India  needs  Christianity.  She 
can  never  become  an  independent  nation  until  she  accepts 

[83] 


Christianity,  and  if  we  can  help,  even  in  a  small  way,  to 
bring  about  the  better  conditions,  we  do  not  consider  our 
lives  will  be  spent  in  vain. 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

Ella  Scholberg. 


[84 


Narsinghpur,  C.  P.,  India,  November  29,  191 1. 
Dear  Friends  at  Home: 

I  hope  you  have  received  the  letters  I  have  been  writing 
regularly  once  a  month.  There  was  the  letter  on  the  Coro- 
nation Durbar,  and  then  another  letter  on  the  subject  of  the 
poverty  of  the  people  of  India.  Then  came  a  letter  on 
education  in  India  —  that  was  a  masterpiece,  that  was  — 
describing  as  it  did  our  experiences  along  the  educational 
line.  And  then  I  wrote  a  series  of  letters  on  "Our  Neigh- 
bors"—  first  the  Mohammedan  and  then  the  Hindu  and 
then  the  Eurasian.  I  hope  you  found  those  letters  inter- 
esting. I  found  it  interesting  calling  to  mind  the  strange 
customs  and  garb  of  these  strange  people,  and  setting  it  all 
down  in  black  and  white.  But  hold! — have  I  really  been 
writing  these  letters,  or  have  I  been  dreaming  that  I  did  so? 
Have  I  just  been  planning  so  hard  on  doing  all  this,  that  I 
imagined  it  was  really  done?  If  so,  let's  begin  with  the 
Coronation  Durbar  and  get  it  off  our  hands  at  once.  It 
is  late  in  the  day  for  the  coronation,  for  by  the  time  you  read 
this  the  affair  itself  will  have  passed  into  history. 

No,  we  are  not  going  to  Delhi  to  attend  it.  We  are  not 
even  going  to  the  nearest  station  through  which  Their 
Majesties  w^U  pass.  It  would  not  be  worth  the  money,  or 
the  while,  for  just  common  folks  like  us  would  not  be  able 
to  get  near  enough  to  see  anything.  We  shall,  however,  go 
out  in  our  compound  and  see  His  Majesty's  special  train  go 
by  on  its  way  from  the  workshops,  where  it  has  been  made, 
to  Bombay,  to  be  in  readiness  to  take  the  royal  party  from 
Bombay  to  Delhi,  and  on  December  12,  the  day  of  the  coro- 
nation, we  will  decorate  the  orphanage  and  school  buildings, 
and  help  to  the  best  of  our  ability  with  the  celebration  that 
will  take  place  in  our  town  on  that  great  day.  From  the 
top  of  the  school  building  "Union  Jack"  will  share  honors 
with  "Old  Glory,"  and  in  the  evening  the  whole  place  will 
be  ablaze  with  myriads  of  lights.  The  Indian  people  know 
so  v/ell  how  to  use  light  decorations.     Thousands  of  little 

[85] 


bowls  will  be  made  out  of  mud  and  dried  in  the  sun.  Filled 
with  cocoanut  oil,  and  a  Httle  strip  of  cloth  put  in  for  a  wick, 
they  burn  for  many  hours.  These  lights  will  be  strung 
along  the  outside  of  the  buildings,  placed  along  the  ledges, 
and  in  all  the  niches  and  corners  of  the  building.  The 
manner  in  which  buildings  are  made  in  this  country  makes 
them  especially  adapted  to  this  kind  of  decoration. 

If  anyone  thinks  that  everyone  who  wills  may  have  a 
chance  to  shake  hands  with  Their  Imperial  Majesties,  just 
as  he  would  shake  hands  with  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  he  is  much  mistaken.  Great  bitterness  is  felt  in  cer- 
tain circles  in  Calcutta  over  the  fact  that  very  few  people 
are  eligible  to  presentation  at  the  court  in  Calcutta  which 
Their  Majesties  will  hold.  We  are  told  that  there  will  be 
very  few  presentations  —  first,  because  there  are  very  few 
people  who  are  eligible  to  do  the  presenting,  and  secondly, 
because  only  those  who  have  been  admitted  to  the  Queen's 
Drawing  Room  at  home  can  be  presented  here.  Then  the 
question  of  dress  has  caused  a  great  deal  of  hard  feeling.  It 
was  given  out  months  ago  that  a  certain  style  of  dress  would 
be  acceptable  on  this  occasion  —  then  the  order  came  from 
the  throne  that  only  another  style  could  be  worn  by  those 
wishing  to  attend  court,  and  it  has  caused  a  great  deal  of 
commotion  in  the  upper  stratum  of  society. 

On  this  occasion,  i.  e.,  the  visit  of  the  King-Emperor 
and  Queen-Empress,  to  India,  one  would  suppose  Their 
Highnesses  would  be  the  guests  of  the  Empire.  But  not  so. 
The  Empire,  in  the  persons  of  Their  Excellencies  Lord  and 
Lady  Hardinge,  and  the  excellent  governors  and  the  chief 
commissioners  of  provinces,  will  be  the  guests  of  His  Maj- 
esty. About  sixty  motor  cars  have  been  brought  out  from 
England,  made  especially  for  the  tropics,  and  in  these  cars 
the  King  will  escort  his  guests  about.  Special  cars  have 
been  made  for  His  Majesty's  hunting  trip  in  Nepal,  and  a 
special  road  has  been  built  through  the  jungles.  I  doubt 
not  that  especial  tigers  have  been  made  for  him  to  shoot. 
And  the  beaters  even  are  having  special  motor  wagonettes 
to  ride  in,  so  they,  poor  things!  will  get  a  touch  of  high  life 

[86] 


after  all.  You  know  what  a  beater  is,  don't  you?  He  is 
the  man  who  finds  a  tin  pan  to  beat  on,  and  scares  the  tiger 
up.  You  see  the  Royal  Hunter  and  his  party  will  find  a 
nice  shady  tree,  and  have  a  soft  seat  put  in  it  to  sit  on,  while 
the  beaters  —  two  or  three  hundred  strong  —  will  go  and 
hunt  up  the  tiger,  and  scare  him  with  their  combined  noise  to 
go  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Royal  Tree,  so  to  speak,  and  get 
shot. 

Delhi,  which  is  the  place  selected  for  the  coronation 
ceremony,  having  been  the  capital  in  Mohammedan  times, 
has  become  a  city  of  tents.  People  have  to  pay  immense 
sums  of  money  for  the  ten  days  —  forty  dollars  a  day,  for 
food  to  eat  and  a  place  to  sleep.  It  is  hard  to  conceive  the 
vast  sums  of  money  that  have  been  spent  and  will  be  spent 
on  this  occasion.  I  believe  the  Indian  government  and  the 
home  government  are  sharing  the  expense,  but  I  am  not 
sure  in  what  proportion.  The  tents  are  already  sold  —  the 
Mid-India  Christian  Convention  bought  three  huge  ones  at 
half  price,  a  thousand  rupees.  We  do  not  take  possession  of 
them,  however,  until  the  Durbar  is  a  thing  of  the  past. 
When  Their  Majesties  go  to  Calcutta  (and  it  is  kept  a  pro- 
found secret  over  what  route  they  are  to  go),  there  will  be 
what  will  be  known  in  history  as  the  Calcutta  Pageant.  A 
specialist  in  pageants,  Mr.  Lascelles,  has  come  out  from 
England  to  arrange  it.  He  says  that  with  India's  pictur- 
esque people  and  environments,  this  pageant  in  our  capital 
city  will  be  the  grandest  ever  held  in  all  the  wide  world. 

This  has  been  a  hard  day  for  us,  as  it  is  home  mail  day 
and  we  have  received  the  congratulatory  letters  on  baby's 
birth.  In  two  w^eeks  we  will  receive  letters  of  sympathy, 
which  will  be  more  comforting  to  read.  But  I  wonder  if 
congratulations  are  not  more  appropriate,  anyway,  for  we 
have  a  sweet  baby  flower  in  the  Garden  of  Paradise.  It  is 
hard  to  bear  now  —  the  pain,  the  separation,  and  the  lone- 
liness and  the  loss!  But  it  will  all  be  made  up  to  us  after- 
wards. _^         .  , 

Very  smcerely  yours, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 

[87] 


Pachmarhi,  C.  P.,  India,  May  lo,  191 2. 
Dear  Journal  Friends: 

Now  that  vacation  days  are  here  again,  I  think  I  can  find 
time  to  write  to  you.  The  word  "vacation"  does  not  apply 
very  well  to  us  folks,  but  we  do  get  away  to  the  hills  for  a 
month  or  two  every  year  to  escape  the  most  intense  heat  of 
the  plains.  We  carry  much  work  with  us  and  we  find  always 
that  our  days  in  the  hills  give  us  a  little  time  for  a  quiet  study 
of  the  language.  It  must  seem  strange  to  you  to  read  of  our 
still  studying  at  the  language,  but  you  must  remember  that 
this  is  our  second  language  in  this  country.  We  began  with 
Marathi  in  Bombay,  where  we  lived  nearly  three  years,  and 
Mr.  Scholberg  could  preach  in  it,  and  I  was  just  beginning 
to  feel  that  I  could  use  it  a  little  without  being  ashamed  of 
making  mistakes.  I  could  at  least  make  myself  understood 
a  bit  when  our  good  Bishop  transferred  us  to  the  Hindi 
language  area,  and  we  started  the  Hindi  tongue  at  once.  It 
was  less  than  a  year  before  Mr.  Scholberg  began  to  preach 
every  Sunday  in  Hindi,  but  I  am  not  so  good  at  languages  as 
he  is,  so  I'm  still  studying.  The  greatest  drawback  I  have 
had  since  we  came  to  Narsinghpur  is  that  I  can  do  most  of 
my  work  in  English,  so  I  have  not  had  the  practice  in  the 
vernacular  that  I  might  have  had.  I  teach  in  the  high 
school  in  English,  and  have  an  English-speaking  cook,  so 
my  housekeeping  is  usually  done  in  English.  I  talk  English 
to  my  two  little  girls,  and  the  masters  in  the  orphanage, 
workshop  and  garden  are  English-speaking,  so  I  oversee 
much  of  the  work  in  English.  Nearly  all  the  writing  I  do 
has  to  be  done  in  English,  and  my  assistant  for  the  Bible 
woman's  work  is  a  young  woman  who  speaks  very  well  in 
English.  But  I  do  want  to  get  Hindi  so  well  while  I  am  here 
this  summer  that  I  can  teach  the  woman's  class  in  Sunday 
School  when  I  get  back,  and  can  express  myself  without 
mistakes  when  occasion  demands. 

Speaking  of  languages,  we  had  a  very  interesting  concert 
in  our  compound  at  Narsinghpur  just  before  we  left  home. 

[88] 


We  had  songs,  solos,  and  quartettes  in  seventeen  different 
languages.  One  of  the  professors  in  the  high  school  is  from 
the  South,  so  he  knew  Tamil,  Telegu  and  Kanerese.  He  also 
gave  us  an  oration  in  Latin.  Another  professor  sang  in 
Persian,  Mr.  Scholberg  sang  in  Norwegian,  Swedish,  and 
Marathi,  and  we  sang  together  a  simple  song  in  German. 
The  Hindi  teacher  in  the  high  school  gave  us  something  in 
Hindi  and  Sanskrit  and  another  teacher  sang  a  solo  in  Pun- 
jabi. The  wife  of  the  native  pastor  of  the  church  sang  in 
Bengali  and  Labani.  Then  we  had  a  quartette  in  English 
and  songs  in  Urdu  and  Arabic.  We  might  have  had  Arme- 
nian and  French  had  two  of  our  friends  come  —  the  section 
boss  is  a  Frenchman  and  his  sister  knows  Armenian.  And 
then,  too,  we  might  have  had  some  Americanese  if  we  our- 
selves were  not  so  rusty  in  it.  We  get  out  of  the  practice 
living  among  people  who  speak  very  correct  English  and 
we  hear  it  only  when  a  group  of  Americans  get  together. 
Whenever  new  missionaries  come  out  we  g^ather  around  them 
to  hear  the  latest  slang,  but  they  soon  drop  it  as  we  have 
done.  English  people  cannot  understand  it,  so  we  just 
gradually  —  my  pen  writes  —  "cut  it  out." 

Pachmarhi  is  a  very  beautiful  hill  station  and  it  becomes 
the  capital  for  Central  Provinces  during  the  hot  weather. 
The  chief  commissioner  comes  up  from  Nagpur  about  the 
ist  of  April,  with  his  secretaries  and  personal  assistants. 
The  inspector  general  of  police  is  here  and  the  excise  com- 
missioner, director  of  public  instruction,  and  school  in- 
spectors. The  calling  hours  are  from  twelve  to  two  in  this 
upper  stratum  of  society.  The  complaint  is  often  made  that 
missionaries  hold  themselves  aloof  from  society  and  do  not 
mix  with  the  English  people  in  this  country.  Of  course,  our 
time  and  money  are  too  limited  to  go  very  far  with  them,  but 
we  try  to  do  the  proper  thing  about  calls.  Yesterday  we 
attended  the  garden  party  at  Government  House.  There 
were  three  tennis  courts,  two  badminton  and  one  croquet 
ground  filled  all  the  time  and  the  dance  hall  seemed  to  be 
filled.  We  took  a  ride  about  the  grounds  on  the  elephant, 
but  did  not  enjoy  it  much  as  the  beast  got  fractious  because 

[891 


his  driver  would  not  allow  him  to  stop  now  and  then  to  eat 
up  the  flowers.  There  are  many  striking  views  in  hill  and 
valley  about  here  and  we  will  take  time  for  a  few  picnics 
before  we  go  home.  Pachmarhi  is  a  small  plateau  thirty- 
five  hundred  feet  above  sea  level  and  thirty-five  miles  from 
the  nearest  railroad.  We  came  up  in  a  two-wheeled  car- 
riage pulled  by  horses  and  had  a  change  of  horses  every  five 
miles,  so  we  made  the  trip  in  six  hours.  Our  mission  owns 
an  eight-room  bungalow  here,  so  we  take  turns  at  coming  up. 
This  year  there  are  six  grown-ups  and  five  children. 

I  shall  try  to  write  again,  Mr.  Editor,  before  we  go  home. 
I  am  anxious  that  our  friends  should  get  a  true  idea  of  this 
interesting  country  we  live  in,  and  I  have  planned  a  series  of 
letters  on  "Our  Neighbors,"  but  do  not  know  when  I  shall 
ever  have  time  to  do  it  properly. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


[90 


Narsinghpur,  C.  P.,  India,  August  i6,  191 2. 
Dear  Journal  Friends: 

A  very  high  caste  Hindu  gentleman  came  in  a  few  minutes 
ago  on  an  errand  that  pleased  us  very  much.  He  is  an 
extra  assistant  commissioner  in  the  Forest  Department  and 
is  to  be  stationed  here  for  some  time.  He  has  a  good  educa- 
tion, technically,  and  makes,  I  suppose,  between  one  hundred 
and  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars  a  month.  He  was 
on  a  quest  for  a  lady  teacher  for  his  wife  and  daughters,  who 
are  kept  inside  the  house  like  a  prison  as  most  high  caste 
folks  are.  Any  number  of  lady  teachers  are  available  in  this 
town,  but  instead  of  getting  a  Hindu  or  Mohammedan  lady, 
he  came  to  us  asking  if  we  could  furnish  a  teacher  from  our 
mission  folks,  because  he  said  he  preferred  a  woman  of  good 
moral  character  to  come  to  teach  in  his  home.  I  shall  send 
one  of  my  Bible  women  for  two  hours  every  day.  He  went 
on  to  say  that  that  was  the  chief  cause  of  the  failure  of  the 
Hindu  and  Mohammedan  schools — the  low  moral  standard 
of  the  teachers.  It  makes  the  inconveniences  and  troubles 
we  daily  endure  sink  into  nothingness  when  we  hear  such 
testimony  as  that  from  a  Hindu. 

Being  engaged  in  school  work  we  are  naturally  more 
interested  in  that  than  in  any  other  sort  of  mission  work, 
excepting,  of  course,  in  the  preaching  of  the  gospel.  Though 
Mr.  Scholberg  has  time  only  during  the  evenings  and  on 
Sundays  for  preaching,  we  have  twenty  paid  and  volunteer 
preachers  and  Bible  women,  working  daily  here  in  Nar- 
singhpur and  in  a  dozen  or  more  surrounding  villages.  He 
has  baptized  about  a  hundred  folk  in  the  two  years  and  a 
half  we  have  been  here,  but  our  greatest  fruit  will  come  in  the 
future  years  from  the  boys  who  have  gone  through  our 
school. 

We  have  a  better  staff  than  ever  this  year,  as  it  consists, 
counting  ourselves,  of  six  college  graduates  and  four  other 
teachers  of  lower  grade.  There  are  ninety-nine  boys  in  the 
primary  school,  sixty  in  the  middle  school,  and  eighty-two  in 

[91] 


the  high  school.  I  have  only  one  class,  that  of  the  pre- 
matriculation  class  in  English,  but  Mr.  Scholberg  teaches 
Bible  to  a  number  of  the  classes,  besides  English  to  the 
matriculation  or  entrance  class.  That  is  the  highest  class 
of  the  high  school,  the  class  that  will  the  next  year  enter 
college  or  enter  upon  their  life's  work.  In  my  class  there 
are  eighteen  Hindu  boys,  five  Christian  boys,  and  three 
Mohammedans.  A  Hindu  and  a  Christian  boy  tie  for  first 
place  in  the  class.  The  Hindus  and  Mohammedans  all 
come  from  wealthy  homes  and  their  fathers  are  judges  and 
lawyers  and  government  servants  and  land  owners.  Very 
few  poor  boys  ever  get  as  far  as  high  school.  The  Chris- 
tian boys  are  orphans  and  have  been  educated  from  money 
that  has  come  from  patrons  in  America.  Besides  them, 
we  are  allowed,  according  to  government  code,  to  educate 
ten  per  cent  of  free  students,  but  they  must  be  bright  boys. 
No  stupid  boys  can  come  to  school  without  paying  fees. 
The  fees  in  the  high  school  are  two  and  three  rupees  a 
month  —  from  sixty  cents  to  a  dollar.  If  a  boy  fails  one 
year  and  takes  that  work  over  again,  he  must  pay  another 
rupee  a  month;  and  if  a  boy  does  not  hand  in  his  composition 
or  examination  paper,  or  if  his  mark  is  below  passing  (33K), 
he  is  fined.  The  boys  are  much  more  anxious  to  escape 
fines  than  they  are  to  get  an  education.  If  they  do  not 
possess  any  native  ambition,  the  idea  is  to  cultivate  it  by  the 
fining  process.  I  often  wish  they  could  be  inoculated  with 
ambition,  just  as  they  are  inoculated  with  anti-plague  serum 
every  winter.  Ambition  and  ingenuity,  two  of  fortune's 
greatest  gifts,  do  not  thrive,  for  some  reason  or  other,  in 
Oriental  soil. 

It  is  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to  come  in  daily  contact  with 
a  class  of  Hindustani  boys.  The  pity  of  it  is  that  they  have 
to  study  EngHsh  at  all.  It  is  not  their  native  tongue,  but 
they  must  take  their  mathematics  and  their  sciences,  geog- 
raphy and  history,  in  it.  They  study  much  more  about 
England  than  they  do  about  their  own  country  but  that  is 
because  there  is  no  history  of  India  (or  much  of  it),  and  India 
has  no  poetry  or  romance  or  art.     What  I  would  like  to  see 

[92] 


would  be  all  the  subjects  and  all  the  books  of  the  complete 

course  translated  into  their  own  language.     They  would 

really  gather  much  more  from  such  a  course  and  become  much 

more  learned. 

But  the  idea,  of  course,  is  to  make  the  course  so  difficult 

that  very  few  can  pass  and  to  raise  the  fees  so  high  that  only 

a  very  small  proportion  of  the  Hindustan  people  can  ever 

pay  them.     In  one  way  there  is  some  justification  by  such 

a  procedure  —  there  are  not  positions  enough  to  go  around. 

A  man  expects  a  big  position  when  he  gets  an  education  and 

will  not  stoop  to  any  sort  of  manual  labor.     So  it  is  creating 

a  lot  of  educated  dissatisfied  folk,  to  make  education  cheap. 

Only  by  raising  the  level  of  society  can  we  hope  to  solve  the 

problem.  _^         .  , 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


[93] 


Mussouri,  U.  P.,  India,  May  6,  1913. 
Dear  Home  Friends: 

This  is  the  second  time  we  have  gone  to  the  Himalayas 
for  our  hot  weather  vacation  and  I  am  confirming  the  im- 
pression I  had  of  them  four  years  ago  in  Kashmir.  I  do 
not  Hke  them.  We  have  rooms  only  a  few  rods  from  a  very 
good  view  of  the  more  distant  snow-capped  peaks,  and  many 
people  take  long  walks  in  order  to  get  this  good  view,  but 
I  have  not  once  gone  out  purposely  to  take  a  look  at  them. 
When  I  happen  out  on  the  road  I  do  stand  a  moment  to 
gaze  at  them  —  not  so  much  in  admiration  of  them  as  in 
adoration  of  their  Creator.  They  are  so  silent  and  distant 
and  cold,  and  they  have  always  represented  separation  to 
me  —  separation  from  home  and  work. 

It  is  very  cold  up  here  —  it  is  hard  to  believe  we  are 
still  in  India.  Mussouri  is  a  great  summer  resort  and  we 
have  taken  a  few  rooms  for  the  whole  season,  six  months.  I 
do  not  know  whether  I  shall  be  able  to  stick  it  out  that  long. 
Mr.  Scholberg  will  be  up  only  for  six  weeks  or  two  months, 
but  for  Miriam's  sake  I  have  undertaken  it.  If  she  does  not 
show  a  marked  improvement  we  shall  send  her  to  America 
next  year.  Many  folks  say  that  all  the  matter  with  her  is 
just  India.  Dorothy  is  the  picture  of  health  and  never 
needs  a  hill  climate. 

The  people  up  here  —  the  hill  tribes,  I  mean  —  are  a 
very  independent  set.  They  do  not  lay  themselves  down  in 
the  dirt  to  be  walked  on  by  the  Europeans,  figuratively 
speaking,  like  the  natives  do  in  Central  Provinces.  I  ex- 
pected to  see  them  larger  and  stronger  as  all  the  northern 
people  are,  but  they  seem  about  like  those  of  Central  India. 
They  are  an  unattractive  lot  and  their  language  is  simply 
unintelligible.  There  is  a  missionary  who  lives  here  with 
his  wife  and  children,  and  who  goes  out  to  the  villages  round 
about  on  the  hillsides.  They  work  independently  of  any 
mission  and  get  their  support  from  any  source.  He  used 
to  be  a  Salvation  Army  man,  but  left  it  to  bring  his  wife  to 

[94l 


the  hills  as  she  cannot  stand  the  climate  of  the  plains.  He 
has  reduced  the  language  of  these  hill  people  to  writing, 
having  lived  among  them  many  years.  And  of  course  he 
understands  them  and  they  understand  him.  The  Presby- 
terians are  most  in  evidence  here  —  they  have  the  chaplaincy 
of  the  Non-conformists  (as  this  is  a  large  miUtary  station),  a 
free  dispensary,  and  hospital  down  in  the  center  of  the  town, 
and  a  large  high  school  and  college  for  European  girls.  We 
have  a  Methodist  Church  here  and  our  missionaries  of  North 
India  take  turns  serving  it  year  after  year.  It  is  only  for 
English  speaking  folks  and  is  open  only  of  course  during  the 
season.  The  population  up  here  is  almost  entirely  English 
and  after  October  everyone  goes  down  —  at  least  part  way 
down  the  hills.  The  Presbyterian  Church  being  just  across 
the  road  and  the  Methodist  being  miles  away,  we  attend  the 
former.  At  eleven  they  have  the  parade  service  and  all  the 
soldiers  who  do  not  attend  the  Church  of  England  come  in 
uniform  and  armed.  One  of  the  regiments  up  here  is  a 
Scottish  Highland  and  they  are  a  fine  lot  of  young  fellows, 
far  superior  to  the  English  soldier.  I  suppose  you  know  that 
England's  most  uneducated  and  characterless  folks  get  into 
the  army  and  the  English  soldier  is  considered  so  low  a 
creature  that  he  is  never  received  in  English  society.  But 
they  do  look  nice  when  they  all  stand  at  attention  and  sing 
"God  Save  the  King"  at  the  end  of  every  parade  service  in 
church;  and  then  they  pick  up  their  guns  and  file  out  of 
church,  while  the  orchestra  plays  a  march,  and  outside  they 
go  through  a  drill  before  they  march  home. 

I  ran  across  something  the  other  day  the  like  of  which 
I  had  not  seen  since  we  left  America.  It  was  just  rhubarb, 
but  it  looked  so  good  that  I  immediately  bought  a  pound  of 
it,  though  I  am  sure  the  shopkeeper  wondered  at  my  paying 
his  price.  You  know  the  merchants  in  this  land  always 
say  their  goods  are  worth  four  times  as  much  as  they  are, 
and  then  you  have  to  spend  ten  minutes  or  so  jewing  them 
down.  It  always  finishes  a  purchase  most  quickly  to  say, 
*'I  won't  give  you  one  cowry  (shell)  more  for  so  much  of  that 
article,  "and  turn  your  back  quite  on  the  merchant  and  walk 

[95] 


out  of  his  shop.  He  will  then  call  you  back  and  give  you 
the  article  at  your  price.  Well,  when  the  merchant  said 
"six  annas  (twelve  cents)  a  pound  for  this  rhubarb,"  I 
bought  it  at  once,  just  to  have  the  pleasure  of  holding  it  in 
my  arms  as  quickly  as  possible.  I  wouldn't  let  the  servant 
touch  it,  but  peeled  it  all  myself  when  I  got  home;  and  I 
lingered  over  it  as  long  as  I  pleased,  thinking  of  the  time 
when  I  was  a  little  girl  and  used  to  make  a  great  fuss  over 
peeling  a  bit  of  rhubarb.  It  isn't  as  good  as  American 
rhubarb,  we've  found,  but  it  furnishes  a  fairly  good  sub- 
stitute. ,,  .  , 
Yours  very  smcerely, 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


[96] 


A  TRIP  THROUGH  THE  JUNGLE 

When  plague  broke  out  in  Narsinghpur,  and  it  was 
necessary  to  flee  for  our  lives  to  some  safe  place,  I  took  my 
two  little  girls  and  started  off  through  the  jungle  to  the  home 
of  some  friends  of  another  mission  who  had  many  times 
asked  us  to  come  and  visit  them.  They  assured  us  that  there 
was  no  plague  in  their  town, — by  some  strange  circumstance 
had  never  been, —  so  we  at  once  prepared  to  go.  The 
distance  was  only  thirty  miles,  but  knowing  that  bullocks 
could  not  travel  that  far  in  one  day,  we  proposed  to  send 
our  faithful  old  bullock  driver  on  with  a  pair  of  bullocks 
the  day  before.  He  had  rolled  up  his  bedding  and  prepared 
to  start  when  he  suddenly  felt  sick  and  noticed  a  swollen 
gland  under  his  arm.  He  wisely  reported  it  to  us  and  we 
sent  him  to  the  government  hospital  for  examination.  The 
doctor  advised  us  to  consider  it  a  plague  case,  though  he 
could  not  pronounce  it  such  at  so  early  a  stage  in  the  disease. 
So  we  selected  one  of  the  boys  to  start  at  once  with  the 
bullocks  and  wait  for  us  at  a  village  half  way.  It  happened 
that  the  bullock  driver  did  have  plague  and  died  the  next 
day.  I  never  shall  forget  the  morning  we  started  out. 
One  little  child  had  just  succumbed  to  the  dread  disease, 
and  I  did  not  think  it  wise  to  go  over  to  say  even  a  word  of 
comfort  to  the  poor  mother.  A  plague  squirrel  had  died 
on  our  veranda,  and  our  house  had  to  be  vacated  at  once. 
My  husband  was  settled  in  the  travelers'  bungalow,  but  that 
was  not  altogether  a  safe  place,  as  a  rat  was  found  dead  there 
about  twelve  days  before.  However,  he  could  not  leave 
the  station,  as  our  people  w^ere  in  great  distress.  Some  of 
them  had  moved  out  to  the  plague  camp,  but  all  were  in 
danger. 

A  plague  camp  is  a  misnomer,  as  it  does  not  mean  a  camp 
where  plague  exists,  but  a  temporary  living  place  for  people 
who  have  run  away  from  a  plague-infested  house.  This  year 
plague  was  so  very  severe  in  Narsinghpur  that  all  sorts  of 

[97] 


animals  contracted  the  disease.  Not  only  rats,  but  squirrels, 
birds,  cats,  dogs,  and  even  cows  and  horses  were  known  to 
die  of  it,  and  it  was  not  an  uncommon  sight  to  see  monkeys 
hanging  from  the  trees  in  the  last  agonies  of  the  dread 
disease,  with  their  almost  human  cry  for  help,  and  then  when 
death  came,  to  see  the  bodies  drop  to  the  ground. 

As  is  our  custom  when  plague  makes  its  appearance, 
all  our  community  had  to  submit  to  inoculation.  The 
first  time  the  inoculator  came,  and  all  the  people  were  ordered 
to  be  present  in  the  compound,  we  discovered  that  the  old 
tonga  driver  had  hidden  himself  and  did  not  get  inoculated, 
and  when  the  man  was  to  come  the  second  time  to  inoculate 
those  who  had  been  left  out  (for  all  the  members  of  one 
family  would  not  be  done  at  one  time  on  account  of  the  in- 
convenience of  all  being  sick  at  one  time),  we  gave  him 
strict  orders  to  be  present.  He  protested  grandly,  said  it 
was  contrary  to  their  caste  rules,  but  we  insisted  on  it,  and 
he  finally  agreed.  After  his  death,  we  wondered  how  he  had 
come  to  be  an  exception  to  the  rule  that  an  inoculated  person 
is  not  supposed  to  take  plague,  and  on  inquiry  we  learned 
that  immediately  after  inoculation  he  had  gone  behind  the 
house,  squeezed  the  serum  out  of  his  arm  and  bathed  it  well. 
In  that  way  he  satisfied  his  caste  relations,  and  lost  his  life. 

We  traveled  only  fifteen  miles  the  first  day,  reaching  the 
half-way  bungalow  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  Our 
change  of  bullocks  was  there  waiting  for  us,  but  as  we  were 
in  the  midst  of  a  dense  tiger  jungle  we  did  not  dare  to  under- 
take the  remaining  fifteen  miles  that  evening.  So  we  took 
our  things  out  of  the  tonga,  our  two-wheeled  cart,  and  got 
what  provisions  we  could  in  the  village,  and  settled  ourselves 
for  the  night  in  the  travelers'  bungalow.  In  the  morning 
we  rose  before  the  sun  in  order  to  get  a  good  start.  We 
had  not  gone  many  miles  before  we  discovered  that  the 
bullocks  were  afraid  of  the  jungle.  They  refused,  at  times, 
to  proceed,  and  at  one  place  they  suddenly  turned  off  the 
road  and  ran  down  hill.  It  was  with  great  difficulty  that 
we  managed  to  get  the  cart  back  on  the  road  again. 

If  you  ask  a  person  how  far  it  is  to  Harrai,  he  will  tell 

[98] 


you  it  is  only  twenty  miles  by  foot,  as  the  footpath  between 
the  two  places  goes  "  as  the  crow  flies."  So  at  one  place  when 
Miriam  and  I  were  walking  we  saw  a  well  traveled  footpath 
and  decided  to  follow  it.  We  let  the  tonga  go  on  ahead 
on  the  road,  and  struck  off  on  the  path.  Suddenly  we  found 
ourselves  going  down  into  a  vale,  but  that  did  not  trouble 
us  as  we  felt  sure  we  would  come  up  again  on  the  other  side. 
But  we  were  going  lower  and  lower  into  a  very  dense  jungle, 
we  could  see  only  ten  feet  ahead,  and  the  main  road  had  been 
entirely  lost  to  us.  It  struck  me  that  this  would  be  a  dread- 
fully unsafe  place  to  be  in  should  tigers  be  prowling  about. 
Miriam  suddenly  slipped  and  fell  and  hurt  her  knee  badly. 
To  turn  back  seemed  to  be  the  only  safe  thing  to  do,  so  we 
did.  I  tried  to  carry  Miriam,  but  a  five-year-old  child  is 
too  heavy  to  carry  a  long  distance.  We  reached  the  road 
with  difficulty,  to  find  that  the  tonga  was  nowhere  in  sight 
or  hearing,  and  poor  little  Miriam  was  crying  with  pain.  We 
had  to  hurry,  as  I  was  afraid  that  the  tonga  driver  would  go 
on  to  Harrai  and  not  wait  for  us,  thinking  that  we  would 
come  out  of  the  woods  at  some  place  ahead.  After  a  mile 
we  overtook  the  tonga  and  were  glad  to  get  in  and  ride  a 
while.  I  determined  to  deny  myself  any  further  pleasure 
of  finding  a  short  cut  to  Harrai.  We  reached  our  destination 
at  two  p.  M.  and  found  a  refuge,  though  our  anxiety  over 
the  folks  we  had  left  behind  could  not  be  overcome.  It  is 
all  past  and  gone  now,  but  I  do  not  think  I  shall  ever  forget 
that  trip  through  the  jungle. 

Mrs.  H.  C.   Scholberg. 


[99] 


THREE  YOUNG  EP WORTH  LEAGUERS 
AND  THE  STORY  OF  THEIR  LIVES 

Even  though  we  have  lived  in  this  land  only  six  short 
years,  we  have  come  across  many  different  sorts  of  folks.  A 
traveler,  casually  passing  through  India,  goes  home  and 
writes  a  book  in  which  he  pronounces  the  native  of  Hindustan 
a  very  bad  creature.  We  agree  with  him  sometimes  —  and 
then  again  we  see  such  possibilities  in  the  young  lives  en- 
trusted to  our  care,  and  we  watch  them  grow  up  into  such 
noble  and  useful  young  people,  that  we  decide  the  traveler 
was  mistaken  in  some  cases.  The  longer  we  liver  here,  the 
more  firm  becomes  our  belief  that  even  an  Indian  has  much 
chance  of  becoming  just  what  God  intended  he  should  be. 
So  I  shall  try  to  tell  you  the  story  of  three  boys  who  came  to 
this  orphanage  about  fifteen  years  ago  and  have  grown  to 
young  manhood  in  our  school. 

I.     GANESH 

The  first  boy  is  Ganesh,  and  he  was  a  little  lad  of  six, 
presumably,  when  he  was  going  home  from  his  step-sister's 
and  lost  his  way.  We  shall  never  know  just  how  he  got  here, 
for  it  is  not  written  down  in  history  and  his  own  memory  is 
very  defective  on  that  point,  but  we  are  sure  it  was  one  of  the 
providences  ordered  by  God  himself.  The  missionary 
received  him  from  the  hands  of  a  policeman,  so  it  is  most 
likely  he  was  found  on  some  quiet  road,  not  knowing  the  way 
home.  He  was  so  very  happy  in  his  new  home  that  he  feared 
some  one  might  come  some  day  to  take  him  away.  When  he 
would  be  playing  on  the  playground  and  would  see  people 
passing  on  the  street  he  would  scamper  away  and  hide  if  he 
noticed  that  anyone  looked  particularly  at  him.  Being  a 
bright  lad,  he  finished  primary  school  in  three  and  one-half 
years  and  entered  middle  school.  When  he  was  about 
fourteen  he  had  a  desire  to  see  his  old  home,  which  he  faintly 

[lOO] 


remembered,  so  he  asked  to  go  back.  The  missionary- 
granted  his  request  when  he  saw  that  Ganesh  was  eager  to  go 
and  would  take  his  Bible  with  him  and  preach  the  gospel. 
But  what  changes  had  been  wrought  in  those  eight  years! 
His  mother  did  not  recognize  him,  nor  he  her.  He  began  to 
tell  his  story  and  she  supplemented  the  parts  he  could  not 
tell.  Yes,  this  was  her  lost  son  who  had  come  back  to  her! 
How  gladly  they  received  him  and  assured  him  of  a  welcome 
back  into  his  caste,  which  he  had  broken  when  he  became  a 
Christian.  They  would  pay  the  money  necessary  to  rein- 
state him  in  his  caste,  but  was  he  not  willing?  Surely  this 
young  lad,  who  stood  up  so  proudly  declaring  he  couldn't 
leave  a  living  God  to  follow  deaf  idols  and  speechless  images, 
did  not  know  what  he  was  saying!  But  gradually  the  truth 
dawned  upon  their  minds  —  Ganesh  would  never  again  be 
their  son  in  the  way  he  was  before.  He  remained  at  home 
during  the  vacation,  and  when  school  began  again  he  was 
seen  once  more  on  the  playground  and  in  his  classes.  He  had 
grown  much  older  during  vacation  days  and  gained  much 
independence,  and  would  no  longer  hide  from  anyone  passing 
on  the  street.  As  he  grew  up  he  came  into  a  deeply  religious 
experience  and  did  much  to  deepen  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
school.  When  school  days  were  over  he  took  charge  over  the 
workshop,  and  under  his  business-like  management  and  strict 
honesty  the  shop  not  only  began  paying  all  its  expenses,  but 
began  to  give  about  ten  dollars  a  month  into  the  mission 
treasury.  It  is  not  only  a  training  school  for  twenty-five 
boys,  in  shoemaking,  carpentry,  and  blacksmithing,  but  it  is  a 
training  school  for  building  manly  characters,  with  such  an 
excellent  example  at  its  head.  Though  not  large  of  stature 
he  has  a  commanding  influence,  for  one  cannot  help  but  see 
his  deep  earnestness  and  whole-hearted  sincerity.  His 
parents  are  very  proud  of  him,  and  they  beg  of  him  to  come 
back,  and  belong  to  them  once  more.  He  loves  them,  and  he 
keeps  from  his  own  pocket-book  a  man  in  his  place  on  the 
farm.  He  tells  them  of  Christ  every  opportunity  he  gets 
and  has  great  influence  over  them,  but  so  far  they  have  been 
unwilling  to  leave  their  caste. 

[  lOI  ] 


II.     GAZRAJ 

The  second  boy  is  Gazraj.  Like  Ganesh,  he  was  born  of 
high  caste  people,  but  his  parents  made  their  living  by 
being  professional  poisoners.  They  did  a  thriving  business 
in  this  land  of  crime,  before  they  were  caught  and  condemned 
to  jail  for  fifteen  years.  Gazraj  was  taken  into  our  orphanage, 
as  he  had  no  relatives  to  whom  he  could  go,  except  an  older 
brother  who  had  service  as  a  cook  in  a  government  official's 
home.  This  brother  is  now  at  Aden,  in  the  same  service,  but 
now  drawing  a  good  salary.  He,  too,  has  become  a  Christian. 
The  father  died  in  jail,  but  the  mother  lived  to  see  a  time  of 
freedom.  There  was  nothing  she  could  do  for  a  living  but 
bake  bread,  so  she  was  given  employment  in  our  orphanage 
cookhouse  so  that  she  might,  as  she  desired,  be  near  her  son, 
who  had  now  grown  to  be  a  young  man.  We  came  to  this 
station  about  that  time  and  plague  days  were  just  on.  Every 
one  who  worked  in  any  way  about  the  mission  premises  was 
ordered  to  be  inoculated  and  this  old  woman  had  to  submit 
with  the  rest.  The  usual  fever  came  on  at  once  and  she, 
abstaining  from  food  for  several  days  on  account  of  being 
unclean  (as  is  their  belief  when  anything  European  touches 
them),  became  hungry.  Her  guru  (religious  teacher  of  the 
Hindus)  told  her  that  if  she  would  bathe  she  could  then  have 
food.  So  in  high  fever  she  bathed,  and  having  moved  out  to 
the  plague  camp  and  living  in  a  hut,  she  took  cold,  got 
pneumonia  and  died.  Gazraj  had  taught  her  much  of  the 
Bible,  so  for  his  sake  we  did  not  give  her  body  to  the  Hindus 
to  be  burned,  but  allowed  him  to  have  a  quiet  corner  of 
our  Christian  graveyard  where  his  mother's  body  now  lies. 
He  was  given  work  as  a  teacher;  had  gone  up  three  times  for 
the  matriculation  examination,  but  repeatedly  failed.  This 
year  he  was  working  so  very  hard  and  persistently  that  I 
offered  to  give  him  extra  time  in  English,  for  that  subject 
he  found  the  most  difficult.  So  every  evening  he  came  to 
the  bungalow  and  read  the  entire  course  with  me.  It  was 
dreary  work  for  me,  for  I  felt  doubtful  that  he  would  pass, 
but  I  was  much  rewarded  to  learn,  a  month  ago,  that  he  did 
pass  at  last,  and  had  been  selected  to  take  the  two  years' 

[102] 


course  at  the  Government  Training  College  in  Jabalpur,  all 
his  expenses  being  paid  by  government.  Some  folks  say 
that  the  Indian  people  are  ungrateful,  but  this  young  man's 
heart  just  overflows  with  gratitude  for  what  we  have  been  glad 
to  do  for  him.  After  two  years  he  will  again  take  his  place 
on  our  staff  of  teachers,  this  time  as  a  trained  one. 

III.     SABBA 

The  third  boy  is  Sabba,  who  like  the  other  two  could 
boast,  if  he  wished  to,  of  being  well  born.  His  father's  caste 
is  almost  as  high  as  a  Brahmin.  He  was  a  little  child  of 
two  years  when  his  mother  brought  him  with  her  and  his 
sister  of  eight  years  to  the  government  hospital  of  this 
place.  The  little  girl  was  ill  and  was  brought  for  treatment. 
Day  and  night,  the  mother  and  little  Sabba  waited  on  the 
hospital  veranda  for  the  child  to  get  well.  But  she  did  not 
recover.  Whether  it  was  the  child's  death  that  drove  the 
mother  mad,  or  what  it  was,  no  one  knows,  but  she  suddenly 
disappeared,  leaving  her  little  boy  to  the  mercy  of  circum- 
stances. The  hospital  authorities  gave  him  to  the  mission 
where  he  found  a  home,  and  he  grew  to  be  a  tall,  well- 
built  young  man  of  clean  habits  and  pleasing  manners. 
When  school  days  were  over,  the  position  of  house  father 
being  vacant,  he  was  given  a  trial.  No  one  could  have  taken 
hold  of  his  work  with  more  vim  and  determination  than  he; 
no  one  could  have  endeared  himself  to  the  boys  of  the 
orphanage  more  than  he  has  done  in  the  months  since  he  has 
been  at  this  work.  A  house  father  in  this  country  is  the 
name  given  to  the  man  who  takes  care  of  the  boys  in  an 
orphanage.  He  gives  out  the  grain  to  the  grinders,  weighs 
out  all  the  foodstuffs,  gives  out  the  food,  when  it  is  cooked, 
to  the  boys,  looks  after  their  clothes  and  bedding,  calls  them 
together  for  prayers,  punishes  them  for  disobedience,  and 
looks  after  their  morals  generally.  Sabba  has  done  even 
better  than  we  expected,  although  we  felt  he  was  just  the 
one  for  that  work.  He  has  often  gone  to  his  father's  house 
and  knows  that  his  mother  died  about  ten  years  ago.  He  has 
one  married  brother  who  lives  near  his  old  home  in  the  village, 

[103] 


and  two  sisters  at  home.  They  have  many  times  begged  him 
to  give  up  his  religion  and  come  back  to  them,  but  he  says  he 
has  no  temptation  so  to  do. 

We  get  discouraged  sometimes  because  we  see  so  few 
results,  but  when  we  consider  that  there  may  be  many  more 
boys  just  like  these  among  our  groups  of  homeless  and  cast- 
off  ones,  we  take  new  heart.  And  when  we  wonder  what 
these  boys  might  have  been  had  our  church  never  established 
an  orphanage  here,  we  pause  a  moment  to  thank  God.  In  a 
few  more  years  our  faces  will  be  turned  homeward,  but  we 
shall  be  so  glad  that  we  have  had  the  opportunity  to  follow 
up  the  work  the  missionaries  have  done  before  us.  All  the 
inconveniences  we  have  met  with,  and  the  troubles  we  have 
endured,  will  be  as  nothing  compared  to  the  joy  of  seeing 
these  young  men  take  their  places  in  life's  game  and  play 
their  part  manfully  and  honorably.  With  our  faces  turned 
toward  the  home  for  a  year  of  rest  and  a  cool  climate,  I  am 
sure  we  will  say  from  our  full  hearts:  "Now  lettest  Thou  thy 
servants  depart  in  peace,  for  we  have  seen  Thy  salvation." 

Ella  C.  Scholberg. 


[104 


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